Persimmon?

Player

Player

I'm your huckleberry
Silver Member
I was wondering if there is any interest/demand for persimmon wood for cues or shafts. From what I've gathered it's a very dense, hard, and heavy wood. It used to be used for golf club heads and from some I've seen it looked pretty good too.

I have lots of very large, old persimmon trees on my farm and have been toying around with the Idea of having a cue made with the wood.

What do you cuemakers think?
 
aphelps1

aphelps1

Phelps Custom Cues
Silver Member
Persimmon is of the ebony family but most trees do not get big enough to harvest quality squares for cue making. If the tree is old and big, the wood would be fine for cues. The wood should also be kiln dried for stability though.

Alan

Phelps Custom Cues
 
Player

Player

I'm your huckleberry
Silver Member
SpiderWeb said:
Dont cut the trees because possums need to eat. Possum lives matter!!
Click to expand...

Haha, they sure do! Some of the best meat I ever ate too. I remember going with my Grampaw and setting traps under persimmon trees when the fruit was ripe. He would keep Mr. Possum in a cage for five days on bread and water to "flush him out" and then we'd butcher him. The hide got stretched on a board to dry and sell later. Grammaw (spelling it like we said it) would bake the possum in the oven with sweet potatoes. It was delicious!

Alas, I have more possums and persimmon trees than I can shake a stick at. Lots of trees that you can't reach around.

Just had a crazy idea to get a cue made out of some of the wood.
 
greyghost

greyghost

Coast to Coast
Silver Member
with as many guys that core and use impregnated woods for the entire shell....there's no reason why one coulnd't make one out of persimmon......if everyone tells you no, get the wood and send it to me, as i've always wanted to find pieces large enough myself....and an obove poster is right about it being in the ebony family, if large enough i think it would make a fine playing cue......

love the fruit....so do the wasps...:eek:

i dont see why enough couldn't be gotten from the core of the tree to at least make half splice points
 
MVPCues

MVPCues

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I am going to split a hair here, but it is a big hair. Not only is persimmon in the ebony family, it is in the same genus. By definition, it *IS* an ebony. For very large trees black squares can sometimes be had from close to the pith. Persimmon can sometimes be found at an exotic wood dealer. I had the opportunity to buy some once, but it was all 4/4. It is usually vanilla/blond with streaks of dark gray/black in it.

There has been another thread or two on Persimmon. A search for persimmon in the cuemaker forum might generate more information, including a story about persimmon being bought very cheaply, dyed black, and sold as black ebony...which was technically accurate.

Regarding your question, have you ever cut a tree down and air dried it for your personal use as a cue wood? IMO, the hurdles in your plan are not the persimmon wood itself, but the same hurdles that exist with any air drying of wood someone might cut for themself.
 
CroweCues

CroweCues

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
............

I think it would be an interesting build really. I live here in SE Ohio. I would like to see more cues made from native woods. i say try it, worse that can happen is that it does not work out as planned, right?
 
Player

Player

I'm your huckleberry
Silver Member
I think I'm gonna give it a whirl. From some research I've done it looks like air drying might take up to a year but what the heck. Think I will do some pecan wood too while I'm at it.

So it's going to be a while before I have anything to show for it but I have a feeling it will be worth the wait.
 
QMAKER

QMAKER

LIVE FREE OR DIE
Silver Member
Persimmon

I am making a cue now with a Persimmon wood handle from the clients uncle's
tree he cut down years ago. Not much figure but the nostalgia factor was important to the client.
 
Player

Player

I'm your huckleberry
Silver Member
Cool. I'd like to see a picture of it when you get done. I'm hoping to get some logs cut this next week and get them sawn into squares to start drying.

I was telling a friend about doing this and he showed me some pics of a cue his dad had made with some Hackberry wood in it. It looked real good with lots of figure in it. I have lots of those trees too so I'm going to cut some of that up also.

So now I'm planning on Persimmon, Pecan, and Hackberry.
 
J

johnnysd

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Player said:
Cool. I'd like to see a picture of it when you get done. I'm hoping to get some logs cut this next week and get them sawn into squares to start drying.

I was telling a friend about doing this and he showed me some pics of a cue his dad had made with some Hackberry wood in it. It looked real good with lots of figure in it. I have lots of those trees too so I'm going to cut some of that up also.

So now I'm planning on Persimmon, Pecan, and Hackberry.
Click to expand...

Ever make your persimmon cue?
 
S

Ssonerai

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Old post, but interested,
I buy "oddball" lumber for various uses & have always been interested in persimmon.
Locally I buy black locust (Not black colored, but hard, dense & rot-resistant). Someone in the midwest is supposed to be sawing me some Osage from big logs.

At the right price I'd love to get/try some Persimmon if it had good grain & especially if it had significant black. I pretty much stick to 8/4 material, though will consider nice boards in 5/4 & thicker.

There's a flitch of old stock thick persimmon veneer here that is mostly creamy white - with a wonderful smoky black stripe about 2"- 3" wide right down the center. Still have not thought of something good to make with it.

smt
 
J

johnnysd

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Ssonerai said:
Old post, but interested,
I buy "oddball" lumber for various uses & have always been interested in persimmon.
Locally I buy black locust (Not black colored, but hard, dense & rot-resistant). Someone in the midwest is supposed to be sawing me some Osage from big logs.

At the right price I'd love to get/try some Persimmon if it had good grain & especially if it had significant black. I pretty much stick to 8/4 material, though will consider nice boards in 5/4 & thicker.

There's a flitch of old stock thick persimmon veneer here that is mostly creamy white - with a wonderful smoky black stripe about 2"- 3" wide right down the center. Still have not thought of something good to make with it.

smt
Click to expand...

Based on this write up, black presimmon in a size big enough for cue turning might be almost impossible to find.

https://www.wood-database.com/persimmon/
 
S

Ssonerai

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Based on this write up, black presimmon in a size big enough for cue turning might be almost impossible to find.
Click to expand...

Back when I first started making handplanes, Persimmon looked interesting for the totes, regardless color, because it was hard, dense, smooth, & looked pretty good in old woody golf club heads. But got to reading & it probably is not a stable wood.

I used Purpleheart instead for the first. Up to that point I had been kind of resistant to (non domestic) "exotics". PH turned out to be a gateway drug, though. Soon i was mainlining Cocobola & African blackwood. When blackwood became more difficult & costly to obtain i slid all the way to the bottom and crashed with an ebony habit. I'm thinking easing off back to more sustainable domestics might be kind of the woodwhackers methadone program. But the jonesing is bad. & this crowd is a bunch of enablers.

smt
 
J

johnnysd

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Ssonerai said:
Back when I first started making handplanes, Persimmon looked interesting for the totes, regardless color, because it was hard, dense, smooth, & looked pretty good in old woody golf club heads. But got to reading & it probably is not a stable wood.

I used Purpleheart instead for the first. Up to that point I had been kind of resistant to (non domestic) "exotics". PH turned out to be a gateway drug, though. Soon i was mainlining Cocobola & African blackwood. When blackwood became more difficult & costly to obtain i slid all the way to the bottom and crashed with an ebony habit. I'm thinking easing off back to more sustainable domestics might be kind of the woodwhackers methadone program. But the jonesing is bad. & this crowd is a bunch of enablers.

smt
Click to expand...

Haha. I am not a cuemaker, but I can spend hours just looking at pics of exotic woods
 
Tommy-D

Tommy-D

World's best B player...
Silver Member
I had someone ask me about this twice recently.

I told him I had always heard it was a difficult to work with material,and would better be suited for a forearm or butt sleeve,rather than a shaft because much like Purpleheart,even with a long,skinny taper it might still be too stiff.

I had also been told that it had been used much like Lignum,Ironwood,or Katalox where it was being used as a self-lubricating bearing or bushing material.

He told me he had tried to split some logs of it with a SHARP axe,and barely made a scratch big enough to tell it had been hit with something. Tommy D.
 
rhinobywilhite

rhinobywilhite

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Cut it in 2 inch squares and have it kiln dried. If the shafts do not work out(you could theoretically cut 4 shafts from the 2 x 2 blanks) youthen have lots of forearm and butt blanks.

I believe it will make a nice hitting cue but am dubious concerning using it as shaft wood.

I would also cut the tree down in the Winter. Sap will be down.
 
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