Here’s Why.......
Time.......
It represents the amount of labor involved.
A car mechanic charges by the hour.....how much. It varies but $50 to $100/hr isn’t out of place.
The hourly rate has to cover occupancy costs, utilities, insurance, benefits, cue mistakes, advertising,
equipment & maintenance, spoilage, licenses and taxes, bookkeeping services and all the other
incidentals that go hand in hand operating a business.
So if a cue takes 10 hours, which would be a pretty simple design, ex: say $80/hr., that’s just the start.
Then there’s the actual materials used that have to be marked up for profit since an hourly rate can’t
cover materials that varies with every cue. And when the cue is finished, there still has to be a markup
because a cue maker can’t survive just relying upon hourly billings. I offered hourly to illustrate why
cues can cost so much. And special designs can involve lots of CNC programming hours as well.
I designed five of my cues so the cue maker had to custom program the CNC software to accommodate
the design. Bob Owen told me one of my designs involved a lot of extra programming hours to produce the
cue. That time is just as valuable as when he is gluing veneers or cutting inlays. That cue he made used so
many small inlays that it was extremely tedious work and it took a lot of time......ergo, labor....ergo, it cost a lot
more than if it used a more simple design. Less hours means a lower final price.
That’s why cues can cost so much. A cue maker is using his skills and he decides what his time is worth.
The market confirms it by the way it reacts to the cue maker and some cue makers may be in the several
hundred dollars an hour range. Joel Hercek makes about 20 cues a year so they are in very high demand
And his wait list is over 10 years and every cue is pretty much one of a kind so he commands top dollars.
I’ll post some photos later of what was involved building that cue I earlier mentioned. A lot of CNC programming
was involved and painstaking detailed work with the inlays and Pau Lau has a tendency to crack so there was a
lot of do overs. It was a pain in the ass cue build to undertake but Bob remained enthusiastic throughout the build
despite that at times it ultimately became agonizing to complete. He’s a wonderful man and talented cue maker.