Ebony tip-end splice

Mr. Bond

Mr. Bond

Orbis Non Sufficit
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If you've seen a lot of vintage cues, then you've probably seen the ones with a splice of ebony or some other wood at the tip end of the cue.

Is there a special name for that type of splice or cue?

And, is there an outstanding reason why that type of cue is not widely produced anymore? I think it actually looks pretty cool.
 
It is a butterfly splice. Feeling the two different woods as they move over time would be the downside to those.
 
hello mr bond, love the museum site, did you mean at the end of the shaft (as in the 360) or something else?
 
I was told that a lot of them were actually old time repairs of cues that had warped on the tip end. Does anybody know if this is the case?

Obviously not all are repairs because we see some in old catalogs made new that way.




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cueman said:
It is a butterfly splice. Feeling the two different woods as they move over time would be the downside to those.
Click to expand...

thanks chris - i hope all is well on your end of the woods.

do we suppose that a butterfly spliced cue would suffer from ridiculous deflection or anything of that nature? as cool as it looks, it does seem a little worrysome to me to have a splice in that location..

hello mr bond, love the museum site, did you mean at the end of the shaft (as in the 360) or something else?
Click to expand...

thanks for your kind words. i love that museum like i love air. very much.
(and there's more goodies on the way ;) )

yes, at the end of the shaft, like cue #3 seen below...
levib.jpg
 
I played with Brad Simpson's Brunswick 360 once and it played really good. So I don't think it causes much playing problems. But from an experienced cuemakers point of view, I think the glue bonds are so small there that they may have had problems with them. Look how few have survived. Makes me wonder why so few survived.
 
I've heard the primary reason for the ebony ended shafts was to lengthen the life span of the cue. Back then, glues were very limited, and tips came off routinely. Re-tipping involved sanding the end of the shaft for the new tip, and ebony sanded much slower than maple so it would last longer. I also believe this is the same reason we now have ferrules.
 
cueman said:
I played with Brad Simpson's Brunswick 360 once and it played really good. So I don't think it causes much playing problems. But from an experienced cuemakers point of view, I think the glue bonds are so small there that they may have had problems with them. Look how few have survived. Makes me wonder why so few survived.
Click to expand...

yeah that does make a lot of sense, and it was actually my first thought - there sure isnt a lot of surface area to work with...

i guess i still wouldnt mind owning one that was originally built that way (because it would probably match the butt) :cool:

thanks again
 
Mr. Bond said:
thanks chris - i hope all is well on your end of the woods.

do we suppose that a butterfly spliced cue would suffer from ridiculous deflection or anything of that nature? as cool as it looks, it does seem a little worrysome to me to have a splice in that location..



thanks for your kind words. i love that museum like i love air. very much.
(and there's more goodies on the way ;) )

yes, at the end of the shaft, like cue #3 seen below...
levib.jpg
Click to expand...

that sure looks like a "Finck" on the bottom..
 
Can't remember his name off hand ( ahh, Barny is his first name) but a fellow in Medford, OR has two of them. One Ebony, one Purpleheart. His father made some cues and modified some others. Have no idea how many of these shafts he came up with. Both play very well and have survived the years of use.
 
Has anyone personally built a cue like the kind we're talking about here?
(with butterfly spliced shaft)

Sorry for all the questions but I'm asking because I'd like to know this: at what point during the construction of the cue would the shaft splice actually be done?
(assuming the splice was original and not added as a repair)

For example, is it done before a butt splice? After?
Before a blank is turned or cut into two pieces?
Added to shafts individually regardless of original butt?
 
Not all of the old cues with ebony spliced shafts from Brunswick were butterfly, although that is what I have mostly seen. Here are pics of my old trophy cue It is spliced like a 4 point house cue, and the points of the splices are all razor sharp. The splices are awesome and there has been no movement in the woods that I can feel, and I don't think the cue has ever been refinished. My only wish was that the ivory collars on the butt and shaft weren't cracked.

http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/cuenut/1913Brunswickforearm3_zps1e0e3df7.jpg
http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/cuenut/1913Brunswickforearm2_zpsf9d6c3a1.jpg
 
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