Fillipino cues and cuemakers

wehe4774

wehe4774

Pathfinder
Hi, nice to meet you all guys here.
I have been to AZ for a couple of months, but since I am really a beginner of cue making and custom cues, I did not post things because I do not want my ignorance to embarass myself :)

I have been a pool player for more than 10 years, but just started to be interested into cue making and custom cues since last year.

I have been watching all kinds of cues around all kinds of web sites and Ebay, too. (sorry about these words, just want to say hi to everyone)
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At the first the spot, I have seen a few fillipino cue makers, their design...well for sure are the copies of GINA, JW and McWorter for sure. but price is relatively low as well.

Miranda, Gracie, Patrick (fillipino one), and a Ebayer name is your_supercue, etc, well, from the pics, their cues look nice, I was tracking them, but have not bought any from them. However today After I have searched thru AZ and found out a lot of ppl complaining, including some of frequent thread posters, it seems their cues are not reliable at all, and certain will not be as good as they look on the pics when you receive them.

I am just wondering, is that because their cuemaking technique are bad? not matured? or because of the humidity of US are too difference from Philipine that the cue or shaft will wrap for sure when it arrives in US, or whatever reason.

I am just here to learn, so I hope the people who really know these things not to flame me. And really no offense to anyone. thanks for reading.
 
one more question, I basically own 2 snooker cue, one really old Riley (UK made), and one cheapie (made in china), one meucci and one Taiwan made break/jump, despite of the pool cues that i just got not too long ago, the riley i have owned for nearly 10 years, most of snooker cues are made in Ash, and I have been travelling among China, Australia, Canada, I suppose Canada is the most Humer place, but I never had problem of wrapness of snooker cues.

For pool cues, most of them have a kind of finish, in my opinion i thought they are in a way is protection,too. how come the snooker cue is always fine, but these Miranda can wrap so easily?
 
wehe4774 said:
Hi, nice to meet you all guys here.
I have been to AZ for a couple of months, but since I am really a beginner of cue making and custom cues, I did not post things because I do not want my ignorance to embarass myself :)

I have been a pool player for more than 10 years, but just started to be interested into cue making and custom cues since last year.

I have been watching all kinds of cues around all kinds of web sites and Ebay, too. (sorry about these words, just want to say hi to everyone)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
At the first the spot, I have seen a few fillipino cue makers, their design...well for sure are the copies of GINA, JW and McWorter for sure. but price is relatively low as well.

Miranda, Gracie, Patrick (fillipino one), and a Ebayer name is your_supercue, etc, well, from the pics, their cues look nice, I was tracking them, but have not bought any from them. However today After I have searched thru AZ and found out a lot of ppl complaining, including some of frequent thread posters, it seems their cues are not reliable at all, and certain will not be as good as they look on the pics when you receive them.

I am just wondering, is that because their cuemaking technique are bad? not matured? or because of the humidity of US are too difference from Philipine that the cue or shaft will wrap for sure when it arrives in US, or whatever reason.

I am just here to learn, so I hope the people who really know these things not to flame me. And really no offense to anyone. thanks for reading.
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Your latter are the main reasons for troubles. Climate and humidity and lack of quality materials are the main culprits I would suspect. Doing things by hand instead of by machine, although probably being very inefficient, certainly doesnt rule out building a good cue but does make it harder to accomplish.

Dick
 
wehe4774 said:
one more question, I basically own 2 snooker cue, one really old Riley (UK made), and one cheapie (made in china), one meucci and one Taiwan made break/jump, despite of the pool cues that i just got not too long ago, the riley i have owned for nearly 10 years, most of snooker cues are made in Ash, and I have been travelling among China, Australia, Canada, I suppose Canada is the most Humer place, but I never had problem of wrapness of snooker cues.

For pool cues, most of them have a kind of finish, in my opinion i thought they are in a way is protection,too. how come the snooker cue is always fine, but these Miranda can wrap so easily?
Click to expand...

I'm from the PI's and by no means all cues that come from the PI's are poorly made... I hate to admit it but there are quite a few out there that gave a bad rep to cues being made here... lots of homework for cuemakers here if they plan to ship cues overseas... you see the aesthetic craftsmanship is there, without the aid of cnc, but I believe the flaws could be from the structural design, understanding of wood, cutting procedures, understanding adhesives, how to's and why's etc etc... there are cuemakers everywhere who justjump on the bandwagon not knowing what they went into...

In my case, I get materials from the US, shipping cost kills me,
handselect maple boards for shafts, a dry room, climate controlled shop, etc. and some other more things that goes into cuemaking... financialy draining if I may say so... not to include hundreds of hours or research and development, trial and error etc etc...

Hadj
 
I don't think it's solely the humidity as I have a custom Edwin Reyes cue that is still very straight. I tend to rotate my cues and the ER pair that I have just started their turn. *my cues get upset if I let them sit for too long without their turn* My ER cues:
 

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from Italy

Hi I'm from Italy. First of all I would like to say that the massive quantity of philipino cues you can find on e-bay give a bad reputation of philipino makers.This is the first. I bought and sell about 15 cues from Philipines and can tell you that same of them were really bad made. Others are really better (for the price are wonderful) but the biggest problem I had is for the shafts.It's hard to find a good shaft that roll straight, maybe for the attention of the wood(in USA they put great attention for the choice of wood), the time put on works the shafts and the machinary used. The good think that they use a common pin 5/16x18 or 5/16x14 so you can buy a cue and put another good shaft on it, (predator or whatelse).I personaly don't like predator shaft but is a really good solution.I find good PP(Patrick Pua cues) but try just one and roney cues (Jenor Urate) I sell about 8 of them and still have one.
Hope to be helpfull.
Andy
 
I see, appreciate for you guys reply.

well, it seems not every single one turns out bad.

I have seen PP, miranda, and gracie, these are probably the most frequent ones that i check up onto.

despite the design, the craft work looks quite descent, you have to admit.
but since i am a player, not really a collector, especially i do not earn that much yet to start collection.

basically i was just looking for a cue that is nice, but currently maybe underated, so i may be able to get one piece at a lower price, as most of the ppl mentioned.

well, i will most likely sit back, and wait for more feedback, then make up my mind.

thanks every1 here for the advise. :D
 
I bought an 8-point Gracie cue about a month ago and it cost me $232 shipped. I wanted to check out the quality and was plesantly surprised. The point work was really sharp and even. The woods were beautifully grained. The ringwork was also tight.

The inlay work was not super, but was not bad. My biggest complaints were the rubber bumper and the joint, but after shooting with the cue, I found the joint to be solid.

Gracie is great to deal with, but you have to use Western Union, as they don't take Paypal. They also ship via FedEx, so you get the cue very quickly.

For the money, I just think they are a fine bargain. They are developing great skills at cuemaking over there and will be getting better and better...
 
borlotta said:
First of all I would like to say that the massive quantity of philipino cues you can find on e-bay give a bad reputation of philipino makers.This is the first. I bought and sell about 15 cues from Philipines and can tell you that same of them were really bad made. Others are really better (for the price are wonderful)
Andy
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True of many things like the Stuff you BUY at Wal-Mart....:)
 
wehe4774 said:
I am just wondering, is that because their cuemaking technique are bad? not matured? or because of the humidity of US are too difference from Philipine that the cue or shaft will wrap for sure when it arrives in US, or whatever reason.
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"all the above"....most (not all) filipino cuemakers are NOT 'cuemakers'... they buy from small sweatshops, from cuemakers/sweatshops turn out cues from 'not useable' to 'kinda okay' and you are ripped off on the shipping (shipping is actually their profit maker)....most say they can only take western union; but the reputable ones will take paypal through another group called xoom.

just my 2 cents worth...........jflan
 
Phillippine Qs

Hello. I'm not a Q maker. That said, I want to relate a short story to this thread.

I recently attended the Valley Forge PA Q maker's convention/tournament. I took a Q, signed Gracie Cortes 1/1. It is made of ebony/well figured bird's eye/tiger maple, no wrap and I don't know what the spalted wood is in the handle, with all white being ivory. Extremely long, sharp ebony points and highly carved ivory. Sorry, I can't post a pic as my puter recently crashed and took all my pics with it. I showed it to several Q makers at the convention, plus a couple of pros. All admired the Q and said how great it was and how good it hit, until they found out it was a PI Q. Then u would have thought it was a pariah. :eek: They could not hand it back to me fast enough. One big name pro (everyone here would know the name) even said it was one of the most beautiful and well made Qs that he had ever seen and wanted to know who made it, and I said it was a PI Q. That was the end of the conversation. The 2 shafts that came with it have a very poor loose grain, :( even tho they claimed them to b first quality wood (however, it has been 2 years and both are still straight). However, the butt end of the Q, inlays, and the finish are second to none. I have replaced the shafts with a Tiger X shaft with a Sniper tip as both original shafts seemed to have a flimsy hit, IMHO. I'm sure, just with any business, there are some PI Q makers that do really good work as well as some that don't. I just don't like to c all PI Qs lumped into one barrel that most think is filled with rotten apples. Hopefully, with more quality PI Qs coming to the US, that way of thinking will change. Give credit where credit is due. :)

Charlie
 
Oh, Gracie will use Xoom.com also.... I was just unable to make it work for me... Something about being in Puerto Rico...

I will be buying more Gracie cues...
 
PoolSleuth said:
All Fillipino Cues are not created equally....
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I agree... so are cues made from other places... way back, I aso thought of selling my cues on ebay but learned about the bad rep associated with PI Qs being sold there... not to generalize but that's how things are... as a cuemaker from the PI's, that's prolly the biggest obstacle one has to hurdle.

One time, one guy offered to buy one of my cues but I declined to sell it 'coz the cue that he wanted was made for here (the wood will shrink if I ship it to his country)... just being honest and keepin' the integrity instead of makin a quick buck.... reason why I have a different dry room for local cues... expensive to maintain but one of the things needed for building cues in a tropical climate, which the (sweatshops) don't have the luxury of. Just my 2 cents

hadjCues
 
hadjcues said:
I agree... so are cues made from other places... way back, I aso thought of selling my cues on ebay but learned about the bad rep associated with PI Qs being sold there... not to generalize but that's how things are... as a cuemaker from the PI's, that's prolly the biggest obstacle one has to hurdle.

One time, one guy offered to buy one of my cues but I declined to sell it 'coz the cue that he wanted was made for here (the wood will shrink if I ship it to his country)... just being honest and keepin' the integrity instead of makin a quick buck.... reason why I have a different dry room for local cues... expensive to maintain but one of the things needed for building cues in a tropical climate, which the (sweatshops) don't have the luxury of. Just my 2 cents

hadjCues
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Hi man, you're getting me excited now. I'm goin to your gig tonight. Hopefully you can update me on the stick we talked about. Thanks.
 
i see, thanks guys for sharing your exp and opinions, looks like some stink fish just ruined the whole soup.

i have seen someof phi cues fully posting on Ebay, more look like a page spamming :cool:

but so far the gracie seems getting okay for the feedback, oh, well, maybe at the least the butt. shaft, i may just stick with the production ones.

Cheers,
Wayne
 
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