Finishing nickel silver

[Poolbawls]

I’ve spent 3-4 years working with old house cues. Mainly, to learn what works for me, and what doesn’t. I’m pretty limited on equipment, as I only have a semi cheap bandsaw and a 30 year old Hightower deluxe, and a lot of time. This particular Pool cue essentially is my first complete build (cored, bored and threaded). Everything I did before, was done using an old Pool cue… dressing it up per se. I struggled with a few things, but always kept everything in front of me. I’m pretty pleased with this particular build as everything is dead nuts straight, the shaft is old growth with very minimal taper roll. Of course, prior to gluing everything together, I must have assembled this pool cue 50 times, measuring, testing, adjusting and the likes. I’ve learned a lot from this approach. I’ve assembled rings and tried to visualize what the pool cue would look like when glued up, so there was probably 3-4 different versions I came up with, but I chose the one you see a few weeks back. Because I don’t work on pool cues all year long, I tend to forget a thing here or there, and that has been an issue. I applied finish on this pool cue a few times, only to have to remove it and try again. I polished the nickel silver rings to 600 grit and they looked very good. Once I applied the finish (Solarez), they exhibited a tarnished look again. What technique are y’all using to maintain the polished look on nickel silver? As for the lifted finish on the shaft collar…. I broke my number one rule, I hurried the process because I wanted to shoot the cue that evening with a friend who was coming over.

 

[Canadian cue]

I have observed a couple of things while preparing metallic rings for finish. It is all about how light refracts off the metal and how you prep them changes that. I have established a few rules. I always polish my rings separate from the rest of the cue, always sand and polish while spinning. I have also observed that you can clean them up with edge of a jewelers file which creates very fine radial polishing. Those fine grooves reflect light quite well and get a decent shine. The other more tedious way is to sand them to a very high degree going through all the grits of paper then polishing them. Once completed you need to clean them with well so as they don't tarnish under the finish or cause problems with your finish lifting. Cooper and brass are especially bad for tarnishing and oxidizing.