cue butchers??????????????

[Banker Burt]

Not mentioning names but here is a question...

A friend of mine had a very old Hoppe. He had a local cuemaker replace the wrap and put a new joint in it.

The workmanship was decent but when my friend examined the work he saw where the cuemaker inscribed his name into the butt plate.

An old Hoppe? What do you think?

 

[Varney Cues]

There is a guy in Rock Hill, SC who is doing work now. He used to work at the Hardee's. I've seen a couple of examples now. One was a league player who needed a tip & ferrule. This guy had his lathe set up so he let him do it. I'm dead serious when I tell you he installed a 11mm ferrule with a screw on tip onto a 13mm shaft. Big dents in shaft with a lot of glue for like 14inches down the shaft. I actually could not believe this butcher job...and the fact that he handed it back to the guy with a straight face and tried to charge him. Beware in Rock Hill, SC. Funny thing is a couple of weeks later...I walk into my home room, and there he was with his lathe set up. The less than bright owner of the local 8 Ball Express league had asked him to set up there for her tournament. He ruined a couple more as well. The room owner apologized to me for letting him do work there, saying they hadn't asked his permission and he had no idea. I feel badly for the poor souls who had their shafts ruined. He needs to return to "would you like fries with that?"

 

[bigg7]

screw on tip southwest

There is a cuemaker in Ohio that put a screw on tip on a local players S/W and he makes the ugliest cues out of all the aca cuemakers

 

[Ktown D]

When I was in college there was a little pool room that used all home tables. You had to pay .35 per game and you called out "Rack!" and the family members would come and rack the balls for you. They were a McDermott dealer and I had bought a McDermott from cornhusker. I took it to them to put a new tip on there. The old fella who was the patriarch of the place did the tips. Well...when I went to pick up my stick it was obvious that he had sanded the entire shaft- ferrule- everything. Even when I went to get my shaft he did a courtesy touch up my jacking it off again with some gritty paper.

I learned a valuable lesson there. And when I finally bought a schon- I had the same tip on there for a few years. It was sad.

Did you happen to go to UT and were you playing at McDonald's pool room?
It sure sounds like it. Old man McDonald replaced a ferrule for my buddy- He cut the tenon off and started from scratch. His shaft was an inch shorter and much thinner when he got it back.

 

[ironman]

o k i know yall have had some work done on a cue and were not satisfied. so have i.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but who would you consider a butcher that ruins cues. any personal horror storys ?

The worst cue work I have ever had was done by none other than myself. I am the wrst there ever was.
Ron Geyer does all my work and it is always just perfect. He did tell me though, that if I ever tried anything myself again, he would charge more for cleaning uup my mess..

 

[Jigger]

KC area recommendation?

First of all, I've had great service and results with Scott Sherbine, Tim Scruggs and Guido Orlandi (at regional tournaments). All are top notch for minor to major work. Except for seeing Guido at an occassional tourney, it requires shipping and time. I'd rather avoid the expense and subjecting my equip to travel.

Any recommendations for tip and/or ferrule work in the Kansas City area?

 

[onepocketchump]

I am not goiing to name names as I did not give this person the courtesy of expressing my displeasure with their work when I got the cue back.

I had someone refinish a brand new cue for me. The finish above the wrap had been sliced by an overzealous person in shipping when opening the package.

The cue repairman gave me the cue back with a finish job that was horrible. the finish was uneven, sanding lines were visible all the way down the forearm, the previously polished steel joint was dull and scratched, and worst of all, the stain on the forearm was gone about 8 inches from the joint down, leaving half the forearm a honey brown and half of it natural maple.

A $1200 cue became an unsellable tomato stake. My advice is to be absolutely sure when you have work done. This guy had done tips for me and they came out perfect.

There are definitely a lot of butchers out there. A lot of times at a tournament I'll watch a guy for a while before I'll let him do anything to my stuff or I'll try to inspect some of the stuff he's done.

John

 

[Double-Dave]

Well here it goes,

I went to a cue/table dealer together with a friend of mine for my first moori tip. When I came there I realised that I'd forgotten my cue case (phew). So he started working on my buddie's shaft. First he put it into some sort of lathe which had what looked like a bench-press in the middle where the shaft was secured. Off course this was bare metal pushing into my friend's shaft. After he removed the old tip he glued a new one on straight away (without roughing the tip) and then as a piece de resistance, he layed the shaft on a chair with the tip sticking out, SAT ON IT, and used a piece of sanding lint (bout 200 grit) some 15 inches long to wrap around the tip end of the shaft and sand it like there was no tomorrow. It was flush though.

To this day I consider this a very close call.

My buddy felt something like this:

-Roger (not sure if a broken shaft can stab through a man, but will give it my best shot)

 

[pharaoh68]

I will refrain from naming names but I will say that a local cuemaker once did a wrap change for me and when I got the cue back, there was a very noticeable separation in the finish just below the wrap. Needless to say, he gets none of my work anymore.

 

[ribdoner]

i gave an early 8 point josswest cue to burton spain to refinnish and when i got the cue back the butt was sanded down at least 30 to 40 thousanths, the stainless joint still had the sand marks (never polished), the wrap area was never lathed to match the finnish so the wrap stuck up way above the finnish, which was absolutely horrible, and the shafts which were full 13mm shafts were now 12mm. the cue was junk. to add insult to injury he forgot to put the original joint protectors on the cue when he sent it to me so he said he would send them to me and he put them in an ordinary envelope!! by the time the mail came all i saw was a white envelope with a big hole on the side and no joint protectors. i drove to schon cues a week later after the nervous breakdown and they refinnished again for me but the cue, that was so thin, still was like shooting with a broom handle so i sold it.

LOL....when I lived in chi (back in the stone age) BURTON's finished product and services were NOT in great demand......I don't think you were the only customer who got a surprise

 

[steev]

I had the displeasure of asking a tournament cue-monkey to re-taper a shaft for me. His work with wraps and tips was nice, but my re-tapered shaft came out d-e-a-d. I'm actually going to throw it out when the replacement arrives. I don't remember the guy's name, and it's probably my fault for getting work like that done in a hurry. I'll never take this kind of work to someone other than the maker again.

On a trip to Evansville, IN, I needed a tip and went to some shop on Franklin St. (I wish I could remember the name to steer you away). The woman doing the work didn't secure the chuck and my ferrule was BOUNCING off of her trimming blade. I asked her to stop, took my shaft and walked out. I had it cleaned up by someone else when I got a chance (still has some light gouges in the ferrule!).

Our local pool shop's owner does good work, but I won't leave anything there for fear someone else will try to do the work. There have been a few horror stories...

-s

/I guess the moral of the story is, be sure you trust the folks you let work on your precious baby.

 

[TATE]

A friend of mine had a very old Hoppe. He had a local cuemaker replace the wrap and put a new joint in it.

The workmanship was decent but when my friend examined the work he saw where the cuemaker inscribed his name into the butt plate.

An old Hoppe? What do you think?

What compulsion causes some people to write their name on anything and everything?

Here was another example. One of the largest, oldest and certainly finest live oak trees in the San Fernando Valley had to be trimmed because it was too low over a street. This tree was beautiful and spanned at least 80'.

When the hired tree trimmers were done, the home owner examined the tree in horror. One had carved his name into the trunk with a chainsaw in a large section, at least 6' long. The scarred tree will carry those marks forever. This was a while back. I bet he could be arrested for that today. Besides property damage, the oak is protected here in most Californian cities.

Chris

 

[jayman]

I must say that the repair people at Showcase Billiards in Denver are true butchers. I requested a tip replacement and soon thereafter received my shaft with a chipped ferrule, gouges in the shaft and a huge depression at the base of the shaft where it's locked into the chuck for turning on the lathe.

One of my friends handed his butt over to Showcase to have them fit their proprietary Predator-like shaft to it. The butt was returned with the wrap so damaged AND TORN that it hung from the butt in several places. You could literally peal the wrap off of the butt.

**** SHOWCASE for their shoddy workmanship. I wouldn't go there for ANY work done to my stick.

How did you handle it? did you show it to clay? surely there going to make it right..... I hope!

 

[Musashi]

I must second the Showcase Billiards comment. Shaft dings after tip replaced. When I asked them about the dings they said the dents were existing. I spent an hour drawing out the dents. They suck!
Their cue design is un-original and inconsistent and their customer service is horrible. They do have a great selection of Billiard Books.