Broken cue warranty???

[RRfireblade]

While I do agree with you on upholding the reputation on the name, a cue cannot have a similar warranty as to a computer. It's hard to tell whether a cue broke because of a defect or just pure abuse. It's not like a computer, where if someone dropped it on the floor or spilled coke over it, it would be obvious. In this case, it would be unfair to the cue maker to repair it for free. From the looks of it, it could have been very easily that someone whacked it at the joint and it broke in half. Besides, what kind of cue maker wants to admit he is sending out defective cues?

At the end, if the cue really did break by "accident", then I am sure anyone who saw it will never buy from that maker again. It's the cue makers job to send out good reliable cues. If he doesn't, people will be quick to hear about it and he'll be out of business.

I think it is just too much to ask for when a cue maker devotes so much of his time to a work of art. Art work don't come with warranties. I'm sure there is a few generous cue makers out there who will fix it for free, but if it were me, I wouldn't. Not unless it was clearly the builders fault, where it could have only broke from a defect. Just my opinion.

Well I guess we deal with different kinds of builders.

All those I do would rather lose their A$$ on a cue then let one get out like that with their name on it. And don't even think about someone else doing the repair.

I know builders that have gotten cues in for basic maintainance (tips/wraps/etc) and realized something was not fully to thier standard on a cue and they have redon inlays, finishes or whatever so that when that cue goes back out , it's as good as it can be. There's a reason why they put thier name on it.

To most , IMO , it's more about the cue , respect , and reputiation in the business than money. If any of the really respected guys cared about the money . . . they would be in another business I promise you.

At least that's my experience.

 

[JoeyInCali]

Either way , I'm no cue maker but I am an engineer and machinist and for an un-cored peice of wood that section looks scary to me. The joint area on that side of the cue is the most stressed part of the cue during application of any lateral force be it during the break for the Sigel-esk or during handling , assembly ,leaning etc. I work with a few pretty high end cue makers and I don't know any one of them that would put a joint together like that. I promise you none of these builders would ever have a cue break like that altho I have seen similar breaks.

The joint collar and ring?
The black ring under that ss collar has a 5/8 ID I think.
The SS collar has a 5/8 11 thread I think which is pretty common.
I've seen a Schon break like this too but from abuse as well.

You've got a turned shoulder under the ring and then the tenon bored and threaded for a screw. There's probably not much more than 1/4" of figured wood left around that screw.

5/16 threaded hole on a 5/8 tenon?
Around the bottom of that screw is around .900" in diam. of wood.
I agree a core would have probably prevented this. The coring dowel would not break in part like that. It'd have split in half along the grain.
Be it as it may, this cue was abused imo.

 

[RRfireblade]

I'm talking about the amount of wood left between the screw and the OD.

Take a 5/8" tenon , bore and thread a 5/16" screw down the center and how much wood left between the screw and the od of the wood ?

And obviously the shoulder cut on the tenon is the shear point for the wood. You can see where the break started , it was in the end grain exposed by the cut.

Anywho . . .

It is what it is , probably stressed to hard , harder than I'm sure I would ever lean on a cue but that's not really the point. Do I think the owner abused it ? Sure , probably.

But . . . If in some unkown fit of insanity I built a cue in that way and it was returned broken as pictured, I would repair it at no charge. I think that was the original question at hand.

Yeah , I'd ***** and moan about it , swear it's the last time I do it , kick myself in the butt for not coring it when I knew better but yeah . . . I'd suck it up and fix it, make the customer happy and have anyone who cares know that I fixed a cue some punk snapped in half on a table because I'm that kind of a stand up guy and I'd rather that be the story that got out.

 

[IamMark]

Just reread the whole thread and it says on pg.2 the cue was dropped, so I guess it goes into the abuse category. With that said, I'm kind of glad the cue is repaired, even though I'm still against the idea of honoring that repair for free. I guess I'm glad that the truth came out. No cue maker deserves such bad publicity when it's not his fault.

I imagine something like this happened when the cue broke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H3HrrB0eOA

 

[the_general]

if that happened to our cue - bebot bautista cues (good thing none so far since 1987) and regardless if the one with the cue is the original owner or not, and it's not really intentional like he purposely hit the cue against something, we will replace the cue immediately - no questions asked. even if the cue is like 3 or 5 or 7 or 10 years old or more. we design our cues to last long (hopefully a lifetime) and that's how we honor our warranty offering. but i am confident of our construction techniques and that is why we never had a single incident like breaking for the last 22 years. i have seen a couple of very high valued cues which also broke in half in the mid-forearm section. the problem there is that the wood (a burl) was supposed to be cored. cue was not supposed to be constructed uncored in the first place. that is just an accident waiting to happen. mistakes happen. the important thing is how to resolve it asap.

 

[suckershot]

Wish I had seen this before

This is my cue. I was not aware of this thread until about 10 mins. ago. Since this seems to have drummed up a lot of discussion, I want to set the record straight. But before I do that, I will thank Kenny and also my friends Eric and Howard for helping to eventually get this thing fixed for me...they went to lengths that noone had to and I didn't expect to get this fixed. I had pretty much written it off as a $700 loss.

Now, onto the facts. It seems as though there were many viewpoints on this thread about what happened and whose fault. Let me tell you exactly what happened, and I'll preface by saying that any misunderstandings that occurred in the process of this cue being repaired were unbeknownst to me, as I was completely unaware of anything happening with this cue until about a month ago.

I was playing with this cue one day in the middle of November, and as I am often too lazy to do, this day, I couldn't be bothered to pull out my Omen J/B. So I was playing and breaking with the Jensen. As I am sometimes prone to doing when I am really trying to break hard, I bent my shaft into the table as I was breaking. Obviously, I bent it too much on this particular break. I looked down to see the shaft and part of the joint on the table. For this, I assume full responsibility for the breaking of the cue. This was noone's fault but my own.

How the story got out that I lightly tapped the tip on the table, I have absolutely no idea. Keep in mind, when this cue was broken, one of my friends took the cue, gave it to his friend, who gave it to Kenny. Somewhere along that line, clearly the facts got distorted. What I know for a fact is that I told my friend exactly what happened, that I broke with it and got a bit overzealous and broke the damn thing. Heck, he was in the same poolroom when it happened...I told him not more than 3 mins after it happened.

It was precisely that day that I pretty much wrote it off. In fact, I gave it to my friend and told him that if he wanted to shoulder the cost of the repair, he could have the damn thing, because my assumption was that it was going to cost more than I cared to sink into it to repair. Truth be told, I played better with my Howard anyway. He said he would ask around and see what could be done. That was the last I'd heard of it for some time. I want to be clear on this...from the beginning, I absolutely accepted responsibility for this. Never would I expect Mike to fix this cue free of charge. NEVER.

Later, I was told by my friend he had handed the cue off to one of our other friends, who had gotten it back to Kenny. I was told that Kenny might be able to get it fixed, without any other detail. At that time, I reiterated to my friend if he wanted to shoulder the cost, it was his.

About a month ago, I was informed by my friend that the cue was fixed, and that I only needed to pay S+H for it. I once again reiterated to my friend the promise I made, that if he wanted to pay for it, it was his. He told me he has enough cues and that I could have it. At that point, I went and picked up the cue from our other friend, who was at a local poolhall with Kenny. I thanked Kenny for helping me out.

I can only thank Mike, Kenny, Howard, and Eric for their efforts to get the cue fixed. I can honestly say that I was completely unaware of the trail of events that happened until now. Anyone that was "disappointed" in me (the cue owner) or thinks that it was my fault...you're right. Had I known of the misconception of how the break happened, I would've told the concerned parties exactly what happened. Hopefully, by setting the record straight, I've done what I can.

I apologize for any misconceptions anyone had about what happened. But I can say with no reservation that I personally never lied to anyone about what happened. Unfortunately, since I was not really involved in the repair process, I was not in a position to set the record straight. I only found this thread by searching on "Jensen cue contact", as I was looking to clarify with Mike what had been done to the cue, as I never really asked upon pickup of the repaired cue. I simply thanked Kenny and paid our other friend who had already paid Kenny for the repair.

 

[brianna187]

I don't under stand you paying someone there was no charge by mike to fix the cue??? did someone say there was? if so that's not true Mike fixed the cue free of charge if anyone should be paid after reading this is Mike for fixing the cue which was your fault for breaking... just my opinion he should have been sent something whats right is right he basically gave you a free cue it was nice of you too set the record straight now you should make it right by mike...

and just for the record i know the whole story from mike about fixing the cue and just what he did to make the cue right again i wasn't just saying something i didn't know about. if it was me i would certinally do something for Mike
thanks for listening and i hope you enjoy your cue mike makes aa great hitting cue....