snookered_again
Well-known member
I'm sure it has come up before. I've made a few wood parts like replica radio knobs on my metal lathe, Id like to be able to at least re-tip a few cues. I can make the ferrules in brass and have a bunch of cues with cracked up lousy plastic ones.
I do not think the hole in my chuck is big enough for the butt end of a full cue to fit inside the hole in my chuck so length becomes an issue, so the only way I can see spinning a full length one is by chucking the butt end and holding the small end in a steady rest, but that takes me beyond the length of my ways. no pun intended ;-)
on a sort of related topic, I see a lot of fellows using those curved sanding things and turning their cues, basically re-adjusting the shape by hand sanding.
I have been thinking of making an upright apparatus to just hold the butt end and spin it, the idea being then they would have a spinning cue in their hands and that sanding might be easier and more concentric although they would be sanding by hand in a similar way, at least with the cue rotating, they might be working more concentrically.
I found a fluid pump that might do , it spins , isn't to powerful and I could make a V shaped cup to set the butt end of a cue into. Soft plastic for that, I thought. This wouldn't be a "lathe" , but just a thing to spin cues.
I do think it may be possible to move the center point of my tailstock to allow a taper. but it might need to be more than the offset the lathe is designed to move the tailstock. this means the jaws of my chuck are not in alignment of the rest of the work-piece. I've been thinking maybe something like a car U joint with a chuck on it can be used to allow the cue to run out of axial alignment with the chuck. maybe I could make a slightly tapered collett to grab the end of a cue without marring it.
other than that I have access to wood lathes and I seldom turn wood on my metal lathe it leaves a mess of wood dust which my lathe doesn't' particularly like. I dont see making a lot of them it might just be fun to do some glue ups and make nice butts , maybe I can just buy the shafts and couplers ?. some of the couplers look quite difficult to copy. I dont see a wood lathe as much help as most is done freehand. Thats ok if you want to make wood bowls, but doesn't interest me much. What do I want a wood bowl for?
I like to play snooker and have had a small 7' practice table in my kitchen now. we both have a 3/4 snooker cue and have been using it without the butt end because space is so limited. Not ideal, but It gives us practice all the same, and we play a lot on a full sized table, Just being able to play an hour a day on our own table at our convenience has made an improvement for both of us.
Now I'm moving to a larger table , also with still limited space, so I'd like to modify a couple of cues so the butt is about 4-6" shorter than normal. I have a 3' shorty but I dont need one quite that short. I think I have around 4.5' to the side walls, where it should really be 5' at minimum, but it will be better than the situation we have now. I'm putting a vintage 10' snooker table in my living room.
I don't see making a coupler to match as very practical. My girlfriend has a similar cue but it also has a very complicated thread and collar arrangement.
We noticed last night that mine has the female threads in the shaft and hers is the opposite , they are completely different and I assume a proprietary design. Making either one 6" shorter isn't an easy task and both our cues have extensions, but they dont help make them shorter. an obvious solution is to just buy a couple of cheap snooker cues and cut the butt end shorter. that seems a bit crude but if that's what it takes to make this work I might just do that. many shots can use the full cue, but my side walls are a bit tight. I anticipated this. we both like our cues so I don't see modifying the ones we have.
If I were to make a cue in sections then the length of my ways isn't such an issue.
i would probably need to make or buy a steady rest otherwise I see deflection being an issue as the cue can flex, maybe by using a router or my toolpost grinder I can reduce the load of the cutter and remove wood. I dont see using chisels as any help.
when making wood radio knobs I needed to copy a very specific profile, so what I did was ground my own piece of HSS ( made a cutter) to the shape I wanted and used that in my toolpost. With that I was surprised that I could actually crank them out quite fast with not a bad finish. a friend had given me a knob as a sample and asked me to make him some copies, it worked out well, so I had that to use as a pattern to fit the cutter blade to.
Antique radios have very specific knobs so restoring them sometimes means re-creating there things to a very specific shape. I have literally thousands of samples but there were tens of thousands of designs used.
I can cut wood with a modified cutter, much like I do metal but wood has so much flex I know that wont work out well especially if I try working on the shafts that way. I know it will deflect, catch and turn to garbage.
Im not a cue maker and dont see going into this in any serious way , else I'd look for a cue lathe but I wanted to see what I can do with what I have at hand. I'm sure I can make ferrules of any size of brass and maybe I could make a few for specific sizes or reasons to achieve a good fit and get rid of some of the plastic tipped garbage.
Where we play there are lots of second rate ( house) cues to play with. loose cracked tips and such, and if I can fix some up without breaking the bank, it's a nice contribution to the atmosphere.
I wondered if maybe turning cue balls and using that as material for the ferrules might be a good option, Its an interesting material to machine. Turns pretty easily, not too hard to come across.
the cue lathe is a very specific setup, I dont see trying to fit one into my shop or to replace my metal lathe. are there some thigns I can accomplish with a 9" swing, southbend clone? Anyone else sucessfully making cues on a metal lathe? re- tipping them? are all the cue makers just buying the couplers or is everyone making them somehow?
Most couplers I see, seem quite proprietary and maybe not standardized but made to be custom from the start, thus hard to replicate without specific tooling. Is there a type that is standardized?
do all the better cues have a collar that fits with precision to align the butt and the shaft? I know some merely have a threaded portion so maybe people do it that way. I like the precision of the ones that have a precision fitting coupler, so they don't have a "kink" at the attachment point. obviously the trueness of such a part needs to be accurate , straight and on center, without runout, to be successful.
lots of questions, just want to learn more.
I do not think the hole in my chuck is big enough for the butt end of a full cue to fit inside the hole in my chuck so length becomes an issue, so the only way I can see spinning a full length one is by chucking the butt end and holding the small end in a steady rest, but that takes me beyond the length of my ways. no pun intended ;-)
on a sort of related topic, I see a lot of fellows using those curved sanding things and turning their cues, basically re-adjusting the shape by hand sanding.
I have been thinking of making an upright apparatus to just hold the butt end and spin it, the idea being then they would have a spinning cue in their hands and that sanding might be easier and more concentric although they would be sanding by hand in a similar way, at least with the cue rotating, they might be working more concentrically.
I found a fluid pump that might do , it spins , isn't to powerful and I could make a V shaped cup to set the butt end of a cue into. Soft plastic for that, I thought. This wouldn't be a "lathe" , but just a thing to spin cues.
I do think it may be possible to move the center point of my tailstock to allow a taper. but it might need to be more than the offset the lathe is designed to move the tailstock. this means the jaws of my chuck are not in alignment of the rest of the work-piece. I've been thinking maybe something like a car U joint with a chuck on it can be used to allow the cue to run out of axial alignment with the chuck. maybe I could make a slightly tapered collett to grab the end of a cue without marring it.
other than that I have access to wood lathes and I seldom turn wood on my metal lathe it leaves a mess of wood dust which my lathe doesn't' particularly like. I dont see making a lot of them it might just be fun to do some glue ups and make nice butts , maybe I can just buy the shafts and couplers ?. some of the couplers look quite difficult to copy. I dont see a wood lathe as much help as most is done freehand. Thats ok if you want to make wood bowls, but doesn't interest me much. What do I want a wood bowl for?
I like to play snooker and have had a small 7' practice table in my kitchen now. we both have a 3/4 snooker cue and have been using it without the butt end because space is so limited. Not ideal, but It gives us practice all the same, and we play a lot on a full sized table, Just being able to play an hour a day on our own table at our convenience has made an improvement for both of us.
Now I'm moving to a larger table , also with still limited space, so I'd like to modify a couple of cues so the butt is about 4-6" shorter than normal. I have a 3' shorty but I dont need one quite that short. I think I have around 4.5' to the side walls, where it should really be 5' at minimum, but it will be better than the situation we have now. I'm putting a vintage 10' snooker table in my living room.
I don't see making a coupler to match as very practical. My girlfriend has a similar cue but it also has a very complicated thread and collar arrangement.
We noticed last night that mine has the female threads in the shaft and hers is the opposite , they are completely different and I assume a proprietary design. Making either one 6" shorter isn't an easy task and both our cues have extensions, but they dont help make them shorter. an obvious solution is to just buy a couple of cheap snooker cues and cut the butt end shorter. that seems a bit crude but if that's what it takes to make this work I might just do that. many shots can use the full cue, but my side walls are a bit tight. I anticipated this. we both like our cues so I don't see modifying the ones we have.
If I were to make a cue in sections then the length of my ways isn't such an issue.
i would probably need to make or buy a steady rest otherwise I see deflection being an issue as the cue can flex, maybe by using a router or my toolpost grinder I can reduce the load of the cutter and remove wood. I dont see using chisels as any help.
when making wood radio knobs I needed to copy a very specific profile, so what I did was ground my own piece of HSS ( made a cutter) to the shape I wanted and used that in my toolpost. With that I was surprised that I could actually crank them out quite fast with not a bad finish. a friend had given me a knob as a sample and asked me to make him some copies, it worked out well, so I had that to use as a pattern to fit the cutter blade to.
Antique radios have very specific knobs so restoring them sometimes means re-creating there things to a very specific shape. I have literally thousands of samples but there were tens of thousands of designs used.
I can cut wood with a modified cutter, much like I do metal but wood has so much flex I know that wont work out well especially if I try working on the shafts that way. I know it will deflect, catch and turn to garbage.
Im not a cue maker and dont see going into this in any serious way , else I'd look for a cue lathe but I wanted to see what I can do with what I have at hand. I'm sure I can make ferrules of any size of brass and maybe I could make a few for specific sizes or reasons to achieve a good fit and get rid of some of the plastic tipped garbage.
Where we play there are lots of second rate ( house) cues to play with. loose cracked tips and such, and if I can fix some up without breaking the bank, it's a nice contribution to the atmosphere.
I wondered if maybe turning cue balls and using that as material for the ferrules might be a good option, Its an interesting material to machine. Turns pretty easily, not too hard to come across.
the cue lathe is a very specific setup, I dont see trying to fit one into my shop or to replace my metal lathe. are there some thigns I can accomplish with a 9" swing, southbend clone? Anyone else sucessfully making cues on a metal lathe? re- tipping them? are all the cue makers just buying the couplers or is everyone making them somehow?
Most couplers I see, seem quite proprietary and maybe not standardized but made to be custom from the start, thus hard to replicate without specific tooling. Is there a type that is standardized?
do all the better cues have a collar that fits with precision to align the butt and the shaft? I know some merely have a threaded portion so maybe people do it that way. I like the precision of the ones that have a precision fitting coupler, so they don't have a "kink" at the attachment point. obviously the trueness of such a part needs to be accurate , straight and on center, without runout, to be successful.
lots of questions, just want to learn more.
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