Let's see those great cues that are old school style that never get old...
Show what you have,
Thanks,
John
Show what you have,
Thanks,
John
CUE OF THE YEAR OLD SCHOOL STYLE, NO CNC by hand only
- Thread starter jkmarshall_cues
- Start date
Keith Hanssen 54 pointer!
Chris, that cue is making me dizzy. Awesome.
Chris, aka Cueman brought it to my attention that when I say no CNC work there needs to be some clarifications. Here's what he had to say about it.
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I would like to clarify a couple of things. There will be almost zero true non cnc cues. For instance almost all joint pins are made CNC. The rub off transfers for the logo is cnc. I did the signature on the cue I presented with CNC as all my signatures are done on the cnc mill. But I did all the butterflies manual as well as the point cap inlays were done with a pantomill. Believe it or not a lot of people cut the v-grooves on their CNC mill and then hand fit the v points and veneers. You might want to clarify all points and inlays have to be done non CNC and are not including logos, joint pins, bumpers or ferrules.
Thanks,
Chris
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I agree with Chris' clarifications, what does everyone think??
John
***************
I would like to clarify a couple of things. There will be almost zero true non cnc cues. For instance almost all joint pins are made CNC. The rub off transfers for the logo is cnc. I did the signature on the cue I presented with CNC as all my signatures are done on the cnc mill. But I did all the butterflies manual as well as the point cap inlays were done with a pantomill. Believe it or not a lot of people cut the v-grooves on their CNC mill and then hand fit the v points and veneers. You might want to clarify all points and inlays have to be done non CNC and are not including logos, joint pins, bumpers or ferrules.
Thanks,
Chris
***************
I agree with Chris' clarifications, what does everyone think??
John
Kenny Murrell long time personal player cue
Post remove due to cue were made 7 years ago. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AZ forum members.
Post remove due to cue were made 7 years ago. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AZ forum members.
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Ebony on Ebony.
Kenny M. told me this cue was all hand cuts before his CNC day. Maybe Mr. Murrell will make a comment on this cue.
I think this thread is only for cues built in 2011.
If it is for any year I definitely would like to change the cue I presented.
Hey Chris
I don't see any post on this thread said 2011 cue only. Corrcet me if I am wrong.
Kenny Koo
Hey
Brent , I don't like this cue....I LOVE THIS CUE. As you can see in the pictures the color combinations in this cue are striking and they just pop. i was trying to take a group shot with about 6 cues all fancy but kind of different.....and this bad boy just kept demanding that you look at it...lol
the pics came out terrible by the way...so I am redoing them soon.
It is the only one in the group that was done without CNC.........
Brent , I don't like this cue....I LOVE THIS CUE. As you can see in the pictures the color combinations in this cue are striking and they just pop. i was trying to take a group shot with about 6 cues all fancy but kind of different.....and this bad boy just kept demanding that you look at it...lol
the pics came out terrible by the way...so I am redoing them soon.
It is the only one in the group that was done without CNC.........
Actually, in the title it does say "CUE OF THE YEAR" meaning 2011. At least that's what I intended it to be. I guess I should clarify this and say 2011 now. (<:
LET'S KEEP EM COMING!!!
John
LET'S KEEP EM COMING!!!
John
Personally, I think the designation “NO CNC, by hand only” is so ambiguous and unrealistic that it’s simply ridiculous, especially at this point in the
evolution of the art. How can anyone possibly delineate what constitutes “hand made”? Every cue built today has some connection to automated or CNC
machinery. EVERY cue.
Jim Stadum – half of the Samsara partnership who pioneered the modern intarsia-based designs that other cuemakers are just now starting to rip off –
has famously said:
“The only cue that is truly hand made is the one where a guy chops down a tree with an ax and then whittles it into a cue with a pocketknife.”
That is a sentiment I would agree with, providing the one caveat that the ax and the pocketknife might need to be hand made too.
If you’re using a manual milling machine to cut the V-grooves for your points, does that count towards “hand made”? Perhaps... but perhaps
not if you use a power-feed on your Y-axis to get a smooth cut – after all, what else is the power-feed unit but a servo motor using electronics
to control the speed and direction of a cutting tool (the very antithesis of “hand made”)? So I guess we’ll have to make an exception for the many
automated and semi-automated machines any decent cue shop uses on a regular basis.
But apparently – as noted above – it’s already decided there’s a “hand made” exception for the logos, joint pins, bumpers and ferrules – not to mention
the splice bolts, dyed veneers, and metal/composite rings that are typically found in most of these “hand made” masterpieces. So I it looks like the
current parameter for “hand made” has been narrowed down to just the inlaid or glued-up aspects of a cue... right? Certainly no risk of ambiguity in that...
Or is there? The first inlays I ever did were in guitars, and I used the time-honored techniques of gluing the male inlay to the wood’s surface
and marking its outline with a very sharp scribe. I then popped off the inlay and carefully hand routed the pocket close to the scribed line, where after
I hand-chiseled the pocket edges using various X-acto knives (and similar tools). Yes, the Mother-of-Pearl inlays (snowflakes and slotted diamonds) were all
purchased from an import company, but I had it on good authority that those were being cut by hand in India. Not that I cared, of course... in those
days the only thing anyone gave a rat’s ass about was the appearance of the finished piece.
Nevertheless, such methods can reasonably be called “hand made”. Once I started using a factory-built pantograph to cut pockets and parts the
“hand made” aspect started to blur into an uncertain line – and THAT was when I was still using patterns made the “old-fashioned” way.
See, anyone who just started building cues in the last decade (or so) probably has no idea how cuemakers used to make their patterns. The patterns
they’re using now – if not made in-house - were almost certainly milled on some sort of CNC or automated pattern mill. I personally have designed and
built CNC-machined pantograph patterns for a number of cuemakers who were/are proudly claiming “hand made” status. But really now, no cuemaker
having their patterns cut by a shop that used automated machinery can fairly claim “hand made” skills required for that part of the equation... can they?
Which brings me to this – in a time when CNC machinery is readily available and very inexpensive, why would any cuemaker want to cling
to the dubious qualifier that his cues are all “made by hand with no CNC”? The very idea brings to mind the following exchange:
“I know a guy who can run 440-yards in 100 seconds!”
“Um, okay... but the average high-school track runner does that in less than 50 seconds...”
"Well sure, but my friend only has one leg, is missing three toes, and runs barefoot!”
If I were making cues without any CNC equipment today, I’d just be doing what I’ve always done – trying to make them as interesting and cool as possible.
Which is what guided me toward exploring CNC in the first place. The last thing I’d ever do is promote a purely self-imposed handicap to somehow claim
it makes my work “special” in some way (as in “Special Olympics” perhaps?). The only thing that counts in my book (as far as inlay work goes)
is the end result – which, in my case, means more ACTUAL hand work than I see in most current CNC cues anyway, since I typically hand-cut
virtually all the tips and corners of my inlay pockets.
Finally, as an example, lets consider the Murrell cue photo above:
It appears, due to specific details of the design, that this inlay may have been done without even the use of a pantograph (!). I don’t presume
to know if it was or wasn’t, but it certainly can be done using only a manual mill and a spin indexer. However, it could also be done using a pantograph
(with either shop-built or CNC-cut patterns).
Most importantly, it could also be done using CNC... that’s certainly the tool I’d choose. What’s most significant is that If I wanted to I could
produce the above inlay work with any of those methods – manual mill, pantograph, or CNC – and there’s no person on God’s green earth who could
look at the finished result and be able to determine with any certainty which method I actually used. Pull out your magnifying glass, jeweler’s loop,
or stereomicroscope... not a single one of you could be sure how it was done.
And that fact is what makes the entire “hand-made-vs-CNC” argument so damn silly.
TW
evolution of the art. How can anyone possibly delineate what constitutes “hand made”? Every cue built today has some connection to automated or CNC
machinery. EVERY cue.
Jim Stadum – half of the Samsara partnership who pioneered the modern intarsia-based designs that other cuemakers are just now starting to rip off –
has famously said:
“The only cue that is truly hand made is the one where a guy chops down a tree with an ax and then whittles it into a cue with a pocketknife.”
That is a sentiment I would agree with, providing the one caveat that the ax and the pocketknife might need to be hand made too.
If you’re using a manual milling machine to cut the V-grooves for your points, does that count towards “hand made”? Perhaps... but perhaps
not if you use a power-feed on your Y-axis to get a smooth cut – after all, what else is the power-feed unit but a servo motor using electronics
to control the speed and direction of a cutting tool (the very antithesis of “hand made”)? So I guess we’ll have to make an exception for the many
automated and semi-automated machines any decent cue shop uses on a regular basis.
But apparently – as noted above – it’s already decided there’s a “hand made” exception for the logos, joint pins, bumpers and ferrules – not to mention
the splice bolts, dyed veneers, and metal/composite rings that are typically found in most of these “hand made” masterpieces. So I it looks like the
current parameter for “hand made” has been narrowed down to just the inlaid or glued-up aspects of a cue... right? Certainly no risk of ambiguity in that...
Or is there? The first inlays I ever did were in guitars, and I used the time-honored techniques of gluing the male inlay to the wood’s surface
and marking its outline with a very sharp scribe. I then popped off the inlay and carefully hand routed the pocket close to the scribed line, where after
I hand-chiseled the pocket edges using various X-acto knives (and similar tools). Yes, the Mother-of-Pearl inlays (snowflakes and slotted diamonds) were all
purchased from an import company, but I had it on good authority that those were being cut by hand in India. Not that I cared, of course... in those
days the only thing anyone gave a rat’s ass about was the appearance of the finished piece.
Nevertheless, such methods can reasonably be called “hand made”. Once I started using a factory-built pantograph to cut pockets and parts the
“hand made” aspect started to blur into an uncertain line – and THAT was when I was still using patterns made the “old-fashioned” way.
See, anyone who just started building cues in the last decade (or so) probably has no idea how cuemakers used to make their patterns. The patterns
they’re using now – if not made in-house - were almost certainly milled on some sort of CNC or automated pattern mill. I personally have designed and
built CNC-machined pantograph patterns for a number of cuemakers who were/are proudly claiming “hand made” status. But really now, no cuemaker
having their patterns cut by a shop that used automated machinery can fairly claim “hand made” skills required for that part of the equation... can they?
Which brings me to this – in a time when CNC machinery is readily available and very inexpensive, why would any cuemaker want to cling
to the dubious qualifier that his cues are all “made by hand with no CNC”? The very idea brings to mind the following exchange:
“I know a guy who can run 440-yards in 100 seconds!”
“Um, okay... but the average high-school track runner does that in less than 50 seconds...”
"Well sure, but my friend only has one leg, is missing three toes, and runs barefoot!”
If I were making cues without any CNC equipment today, I’d just be doing what I’ve always done – trying to make them as interesting and cool as possible.
Which is what guided me toward exploring CNC in the first place. The last thing I’d ever do is promote a purely self-imposed handicap to somehow claim
it makes my work “special” in some way (as in “Special Olympics” perhaps?). The only thing that counts in my book (as far as inlay work goes)
is the end result – which, in my case, means more ACTUAL hand work than I see in most current CNC cues anyway, since I typically hand-cut
virtually all the tips and corners of my inlay pockets.
Finally, as an example, lets consider the Murrell cue photo above:
It appears, due to specific details of the design, that this inlay may have been done without even the use of a pantograph (!). I don’t presume
to know if it was or wasn’t, but it certainly can be done using only a manual mill and a spin indexer. However, it could also be done using a pantograph
(with either shop-built or CNC-cut patterns).
Most importantly, it could also be done using CNC... that’s certainly the tool I’d choose. What’s most significant is that If I wanted to I could
produce the above inlay work with any of those methods – manual mill, pantograph, or CNC – and there’s no person on God’s green earth who could
look at the finished result and be able to determine with any certainty which method I actually used. Pull out your magnifying glass, jeweler’s loop,
or stereomicroscope... not a single one of you could be sure how it was done.
And that fact is what makes the entire “hand-made-vs-CNC” argument so damn silly.
TW
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for me , in my little shop, cnc means can not compute
i dont know anything about it, i mean NOTHING, ZILCH, ETC.
dont plan to
im too old to start now
and the world ends next dec.21 anyways
my personal best of 2011
probably my best ever in my humble opinion
i really liked this cue!!!!! :thumbup:
hope steve does too
tikkler's blue butterfly cue in my sig line
If you like Hard Wood Butterflies, with NO SOFT Wood this may rock your boat.:grin:
Attachments
Seems non-ambiguous to me. Non-cnc is non-cnc. Does not seem to require much explanation or analysis. It's a simple matter. 
I don't think anybody is proposing that the cue maker must be off the grid with no electricity using only a treadle lathe in a dirt floor shack.
That some choose more primitive and/or labor intensive means, along the lines of Roy Underhill in some cases, is to be respected. For others, it is an evolution, and they simply have yet to acquire more advanced tools and/or the skills to use them. In either case I for one do not disparage them.
To imply that such equipment is inexpensive demonstrates a certain detachment I think. From my perspective such tools as CNC are expensive in the extreme. Yes, I have looked at the prices. In fact to me a simple repair lathe is expensive. In addition, to say that cue makers who do not have or use such equipment are the parallel of the Special Olympics participants is beyond reprehensible. My son is Autistic and retarded, I find the analogy repugnant to say the least.
Whether or not something can be termed "hand made" is easily arguable. But why argue about it?
Frankly I would love to see more non-CNC "hand made" cues in this thread.
I don't think anybody is proposing that the cue maker must be off the grid with no electricity using only a treadle lathe in a dirt floor shack.
That some choose more primitive and/or labor intensive means, along the lines of Roy Underhill in some cases, is to be respected. For others, it is an evolution, and they simply have yet to acquire more advanced tools and/or the skills to use them. In either case I for one do not disparage them.
To imply that such equipment is inexpensive demonstrates a certain detachment I think. From my perspective such tools as CNC are expensive in the extreme. Yes, I have looked at the prices. In fact to me a simple repair lathe is expensive. In addition, to say that cue makers who do not have or use such equipment are the parallel of the Special Olympics participants is beyond reprehensible. My son is Autistic and retarded, I find the analogy repugnant to say the least.
Whether or not something can be termed "hand made" is easily arguable. But why argue about it?
Frankly I would love to see more non-CNC "hand made" cues in this thread.
Thomas,
I tend to agree with pretty much everything you said. I built cues for years without CNC, but I do use it in my shop now. I have four CNC machines in my shop. But I occasionally do a cue without it also. If we look at this non CNC thread I think it would have been better to leave the "By Hand only" off and just said no "CNC Inlays."
Then the contest would not be saying anything negative against CNC, but it would be more like a fishing contest that does not allow sonar. I have read your articles on CNC verse Manual and you are right. But some customers and cuemakers alike feel like the CNC inlays have made it to where well below average cuemakers can put out a cue that is very attractive, but not that well made.
Let's take it to another extreme: What if the thread had said, "No Decal Cues, by Hand only." Now let's not address the decal cues that are rip offs of other people's designs, but just address nice design decal cues that are totally original. Would it be wrong to exclude them from a cue of the year contest? To be honest with you I rewrapped a Viking decal cue this month that I would say to be up there in the tens of thousands of dollars had it been done with real inlay work, CNC or manual. Can anyone know for certain in a picture on the internet that a cue has real inlays? Probably not in many situations. I have even seen birdseye decal with no design except just gorgeous birdseye.
You can look at the "No CNC" contest as kind of like a Handicapped Olympics if you wish, but the Decal guys could say the same thing about the CNC users. I am all in favor of banning Decal cues from the cue of the year contests. But I also respect the right of people to hold a contest to whatever rules they choose.
Respectfully,
I tend to agree with pretty much everything you said. I built cues for years without CNC, but I do use it in my shop now. I have four CNC machines in my shop. But I occasionally do a cue without it also. If we look at this non CNC thread I think it would have been better to leave the "By Hand only" off and just said no "CNC Inlays."
Then the contest would not be saying anything negative against CNC, but it would be more like a fishing contest that does not allow sonar. I have read your articles on CNC verse Manual and you are right. But some customers and cuemakers alike feel like the CNC inlays have made it to where well below average cuemakers can put out a cue that is very attractive, but not that well made.
Let's take it to another extreme: What if the thread had said, "No Decal Cues, by Hand only." Now let's not address the decal cues that are rip offs of other people's designs, but just address nice design decal cues that are totally original. Would it be wrong to exclude them from a cue of the year contest? To be honest with you I rewrapped a Viking decal cue this month that I would say to be up there in the tens of thousands of dollars had it been done with real inlay work, CNC or manual. Can anyone know for certain in a picture on the internet that a cue has real inlays? Probably not in many situations. I have even seen birdseye decal with no design except just gorgeous birdseye.
You can look at the "No CNC" contest as kind of like a Handicapped Olympics if you wish, but the Decal guys could say the same thing about the CNC users. I am all in favor of banning Decal cues from the cue of the year contests. But I also respect the right of people to hold a contest to whatever rules they choose.
Respectfully,
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