Rick, I pick up on the notion that you find cue making competitive, even to the point of how long it takes to build a cue. Maybe i'm wrong, but it seems that way with every other post of yours boasting about how great or fast your methods are. Time stops for no man, no reason. The world doesn't pause while you pick the wood to be cut, pull it off the shelf, turn on your doweling machine, turn on your dust collector, walk the square to the machine, lift to insert, then unpause for the actual cutting & pause again while you center drill the ends, seal, and hang. The actual cutting motion may take 20 seconds. But everything else involved very quickly adds up to far more time. For being so scientific minded, you sure seem to ignore a lot of the details that would counter your chosen logic. If you're going to use science, and truly be honest with yourself, then you need to consider everything and consider it without bias. Accept the truth no matter how much it defies your thesis. It always feels good to think you figured something out that gives you an edge, but it's blind bliss if it's unproven & void of fact. Science isn't getting an idea & proving it. Science is getting an idea and disproving it every way possible, concluding with the factual truth.
None of us like to admit that it takes a shitload of time to build a cue. That would mean we are doing it for nothing, or at best very cheap. The fact of the matter is that there is no way to build a very nice cue without spending a fair amount of time on it. Eat it because it's true. Disprove it if you think you can. Buyers will not pay $5000 for a plain jane custom cue. So we undercut ourselves & sell them cheaper. Some sell them MUCH cheaper, actually losing money or literally working for free & paying the buyer to take the cue.
If it takes me 30hrs to build a $1000 cue, I make $33.33/hr. Subtract Uncle Sam's 28% & we have $720. Material cost for that cue is roughly $100, including nice woods & phenolics, joint pin, bumper, finish, epoxy, etc. Now it's $620. I use lots of paper towels & chemicals, mixing sticks, rubber bands, rubber gloves, sealer, etc. that likely add up to about $10. $610. My utility bill is about $400/month, and 30hrs. for me is pretty much that entire month, but for a normal 40hr week it brings the cue down to around $530. Insurance on shop and liability another $100/month, $20 for 30hrs, so $510. I suck at records & books so H&R Block keeps me out of trouble for another $20. $490 is what I get from a $1000 cue that took me 30hrs to build. That's $16.6/hr., which is not by any means good but respectable. But now how much of it goes back into more materials, machine maintenance, etc.? And what about guys like me who only get a few hrs./week in the shop? I might actually make $40-$50/week, enough to take momma out to dinner & movie once or twice a month. At $16/hr. you gotta build a shitload of cues & sell every single one of them to make a go of it. At that rate, you'd need to complete two P/J cues every week & never have a single one of them go sour during the build, or else you won't make your bills.
Doesn't sound so awesome being a cue maker, huh? Like I said, I can afford to build cues. This is exactly why full time cue makers spend 60-80hrs/wk in shop. They have to. That 'might' barely get them a single family home & nice vehicle to drive, but forget about medical & dental insurance. And what happens when all of the sudden they aren't "hot" anymore, and people quit buying their cues? Cue makers are made & broken on trends. It's facts of life. Anybody who thinks they can make it on cues is nuts. The only way to do it is hire some help, work your ass off, build a superb cue & charge next to nothing for it so you can sell everything you build. Pay yourself a fair wage & give your employees minimum. Then you maybe can live in the burbs & drive a nice used entry model Lexus. Sounds awesome, huh?
I know I went off on a tangent but the point is that cue making is hard. It pays nothing so you have to genuinely love it. Why put more pressure on yourself by ignoring the facts & cutting yourself short? You're getting screwed already so why do it to yourself some more? Nobody cares how efficient you work or how straight your cues stay after cutting them down so fast. It's really a mute point once you consider reality. Build your cues & be happy with what you do, regardless of how fast you are compared to how fast anybody else is. Nobody wins. Every cue maker loses. So what, you build cues in 10hrs? You're still getting robbed & are poor like the rest of the cue makers. Or you are like me & only do it for your enjoyment, in which then why do you care how long it takes? The longer you spend on a cue, the more fun you have. I feel guilty because I am in demand & can't/won't fill the demand, when there are plenty of other cue makers who really need the business. I have often contemplated quitting on that fact alone. There simply isn't anything in cue making worth competing over, or doing fast. If you build an awesome cue you get a tiny bit of prestige in a tiny little sub-culture. There's literally no plausible purpose for building cues other than genuinely loving the craft. And if you love it enough to do it & deal with all the negative, then just enjoy yourself.
I dont even want to say how long it takes me
