Future of cuemaking

Canadian cue

Canadian cue

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I wanted to ask a general question to all the makers on here but first I will tell you my brief history. I started as a pool player in my late teens had a small pro shop for a short while. I became a machinist and in my eves began fooling around with building cues. I have aquired a full shop of tools. Three metal lathes, full size mill, pantograph and a variety of wood working tools. About six years ago i started collecting wood and building cues. I have not built alot but i built enough to know what it takes and I believe I have the skills to build quality cues. Up until now i have built mostly as a hobby but I have realized that I have enough invested that I should prob make a real go of it. Not go full time but make a commitment to building so many a year. So here is the question is there still a good future in building cues? With the advent of so much equipment and the access to so much knoledge it has realy become obtainable to anyone who has a strong enough interest. It is all supply and demand right? So with so much supply are we realy going to be able to demand enough for custom cues to justify the time and money invested? I mean the industry will always have the very upper crust who can demand top dollar but the average short stop who builds a decent cue has got alot of people to compete with. If you ask the guys who have been doing this for twenty years if they would have chosen something else? Is all the makers who have gotten ill or passed is this related to the enviromental hazards? How does pools declining popularity in North America play into this? Any way just throwing it out there and looking for opinions. Thanks for your time.
 
Well thats disappointing. I was hoping for at least a few opinions. Is this an unreasonable subject to discus?
 
Future of cue business

I will give you my short answer. The cue building business is crowded and
unless you have many, many years of experience (like say SW Cues) you
will have a hard financial time making it full time. Unless, of course, your wife has a good paying job. My personal situation, as a retired business owner,
allows me to indulge in my cue making. I made guitars for many years and there is a lot more money in guitars than in cues. I could go on and on--but what would be the point--like preaching to the choir.
 
The supply is high, the demand is low, barriers to entry are also low, and product differentiation is slim. If your goal is to make money, and cue making isn't necessarily a labor of love for you, then I would suggest that there are better ways to spend your time. Nobody is getting rich making custom cues, which is why it remains a hobby for most and a career for very few.
 
I didnt start building cues for the money it was becuase of my passion for the game and my desire to build. Having said that once you start investing the time and money it takes to build a decent product there starts to come a time when you have to consider your return or at least justify some of your time.
 
Canadian cue said:
I didnt start building cues for the money it was becuase of my passion for the game and my desire to build. Having said that once you start investing the time and money it takes to build a decent product there starts to come a time when you have to consider your return or at least justify some of your time.
Click to expand...

Good luck.
 
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Canadian Cue,

It's kind of hard to search on, I guess, but the general topic has come up before. The consensus was that there are only a handfull of guys able to do it full time and make a living. Most are doing it for the love of the craft and hoping to come close to breaking even - we're always buying more equipment and more supplies.

My 2 cents,

Gary
 
My situation, as I have ALWAYS said, is that I can afford to builds cues. I don't do it to make money. The costs outweigh the income. I luckily am in reasonable demand, unlike 95% of other builders. I get great prices for my work. I don't have to haggle or offer "deals" to try to move my stuff. Sometimes I make a decent nut and can take a vacation or take momma & kids out for a nice dinner. But no way in hell i'd depend on cues to pay any bills. Many times it costs me to build cues. It is very much a labor of love & that's all it is, or ever will be.

You cannot make a living building cues. It won't happen. It can't, unless you are a successful production outfit. Even then it's tough. The only custom guys making an ok income from it aren't making it on building cues, they are making it on repairs. Ask any builder to let his wife quit working, and quit doing repair work. He'll laugh at you.

Another thing to consider is that even though it's 99.9% impossible to make money building cues, your customers see you as a business that should compete for their patronage and kiss their asses to keep them happy. If you don't they rag you out all over online forums like this. So not only are you losing your ass doing something ONLY because you love it and can afford it, you now are expected to be a competitive business man. Sounds appealing, huh? And it's not their fault. They are spending lots of money to get your cue and they should be taken care of. They don't realize or even care that you are only doing the work because you enjoy it. It's their money regardless. It's not good for you, but you love building cues so you take the good with the bad & let it be. Heaven forbid you get tired of it and take a break, or else something bad happens that prevents you from working on cues. Then you are a low life trashy POS. You can't focus on what really matters & take care of your life & yourself. No, you need to first make contact with the dozens or hundreds of people wanting cues from you first & make sure it's ok with them that you might have an emergency. Or post on the forums all about your personal issues & hope folks understand.

So yeah, if you want no personal life, want to kiss everybody's ass, want to answer to everybody over everything going on in your life, and make absolutely no money of note to put up with it all, then by all means become a cue maker. That's when you know you are doing it ONLY because you love doing it.

For me, I love cues. I love building them, looking at them, talking about them, etc. I love the other cue nuts & love getting to know them. I love pool & pool cues. To me, it's most generally worth the aggravation. I endure it. Many do not. It's not much to look forward to but it's exactly the way it is. If you truly love it and have the fortitude to keep enduring it, then you'll be ok. You won't make money. But you'll enjoy yourself. For me it's all worth it when I get to become friends with other folks who love cues. We meet up at shows & tourneys and drink beer & eat & talk cues. It's fun. When I feel like quitting is when folks are selfish assholes who refuse to see things for what they really are, and try controlling my time & life. Those are generally the same folks you see who so quickly & freely pass judgement on people in the forum, even when they have absolutely nothing to do with the situations or know the person they are judging. But their voice is as loud as anybody else's because it's internet, and that really sucks at times. Fortunately they are usually outweighed by the good folks. Still sucks. So there you have it. Welcome to cue making.
 
I assume, since you are doing your Q work part time, that you don't pay taxes on your work. If you build Qs full time you'll have to sit down & figure how much you'll have to make to buy insurance, vacations, utilities,a never ending supply of good wood,& yes taxes. Then how much money do you need to live on? Machines are always breaking down so there will have to be a fund set aside for that emergency. If you think you can make that much money, then go for it. You can make Qs part time & find players in your area that will pay you more than you have in materials, but you will not make it full time unless you can market your work throughout the country. It's hard....JER
 
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Canadian cue said:
I wanted to ask a general question to all the makers on here but first I will tell you my brief history. I started as a pool player in my late teens had a small pro shop for a short while. I became a machinist and in my eves began fooling around with building cues. I have aquired a full shop of tools. Three metal lathes, full size mill, pantograph and a variety of wood working tools. About six years ago i started collecting wood and building cues. I have not built alot but i built enough to know what it takes and I believe I have the skills to build quality cues. Up until now i have built mostly as a hobby but I have realized that I have enough invested that I should prob make a real go of it. Not go full time but make a commitment to building so many a year. So here is the question is there still a good future in building cues? With the advent of so much equipment and the access to so much knoledge it has realy become obtainable to anyone who has a strong enough interest. It is all supply and demand right? So with so much supply are we realy going to be able to demand enough for custom cues to justify the time and money invested? I mean the industry will always have the very upper crust who can demand top dollar but the average short stop who builds a decent cue has got alot of people to compete with. If you ask the guys who have been doing this for twenty years if they would have chosen something else? Is all the makers who have gotten ill or passed is this related to the enviromental hazards? How does pools declining popularity in North America play into this? Any way just throwing it out there and looking for opinions. Thanks for your time.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Great subject. I could not have thought of one that asked a better question.

Pool has been around for 100s of years and will continue long after we are pushing up daisies. Today with a heavy duty recession going on there is a decline but that is not a permanent market condition. I think you have answered your own question when you said "the industry will always have the very upper crust who can demand top dollar".

If you don't believe you can join that upper crust then it's your hobby and a pleasing one at that. You are the best judge if you are honest and can be objective without letting your ego get the best of you. If you hold and inspect a cue that someone is getting over $ 2,500.00 for and can honestly say your cue is of the same quality concerning all of the feature details including hit, then you must believe that your cues will reach that status over time. Rome was not built in a day.

If you put your all into any endeavor and don't quit you will eventually hit the highest level your talent and brains will allow.

In cue making if you do the following with diligence there is no telling what opportunities might come your way:

Have a detailed game plan for success.
Invest in the correct plant equipment that will perform each operation in a repeatable fashion.
Become a journeyman through putting in the time and money to learn all of the hard lessons.
Strive to raise the bar concerning all details.
Don't take shortcuts.
Buy the highest quality raw materials.
Concentrate on all aspects of your product engineering.
Seek peer check and review.
Constantly look for ways to improve all aspects of your product.
Always work from a detailed drawing while machining no matter how good or familiar you are with the process.
Establish definable detailed procedures over time that you follow concerning all aspects of your product development and don't deviate.
Develop ways to reduce your labor input coefficient by being smart concerning machine set ups, build multiple cues at a time and other task efficiencies.
Don't be afraid to charge up to $ 100.00 per hour for your work. If you don't believe you are worth that kind of money for doing skilled, artistic custom work, then no one else will pay it. Once you advertise and sell yourself as a commodity no one will ever view you product as a high value proprietary item.
Treat the customer in a fair and honest way.
Treat the customer in a fair and honest way.
Treat the customer in a fair and honest way.

If you do all of these things and more, the world will beat a path to your door. Once they get to your door it's up to you to keep it open. By the way did I say, Treat the customer in a fair and honest way. Because without that you will fail every time.

Just food for thought,

Rick Geschrey
 
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It's a great life

Hi Vincent,
Its been a while. I have to agree with Qbilder for the most part. Its difficult to break even at best because of the expenses. Now you are working for less than minumum wage because of this passion to make great cues. The hardest part for me to overcome is the name game. I know you make as good a cue as anybody out there but it will only bring 40% to 50% of a comprable cue of the name brands. They may not be works of art but quality works of wood into a great playing cues. I have yet to see a $20k cue in action in a pool hall. I hardley see any of the top 10 builders cues in the local pool halls. The collectors keep the name guys going while people like you keep the short stops and league player supplied. Your market is vastly larger than the name guys but the competition is far greater. I don't know the last count of current cue builders in the US, but I would think it will top 750. Thats a lot of people making a product that has a life span of at least 40 or more years. This does not include the influx of import cues which some are of good quality at a very reasonable price.

Keep it as a hobby/second job/passion or whatever and if you are lucky, it may turn out to be a full time job that actually pays the bills.
 
Great Attitude

scdiveteam said:
Hi,

Great subject. I could not have thought of one that asked a better question.

Pool has been around for 100s of years and will continue long after we are pushing up daisies. Today with a heavy duty recession going on there is a decline but that is not a permanent market condition. I think you have answered your own question when you said "the industry will always have the very upper crust who can demand top dollar".

If you don't believe you can join that upper crust then it's your hobby and a pleasing one at that. You are the best judge if you are honest and can be objective without letting your ego get the best of you. If you hold and inspect a cue that someone is getting over $ 2,500.00 for and can honestly say your cue is of the same quality concerning all of the feature details including hit, then you must believe that your cues will reach that status over time. Rome was not built in a day.

If you put your all into any endeavor and don't quit you will eventually hit the highest level your talent and brains will allow.

In cue making if you do the following with diligence there is no telling what opportunities might come your way:

Have a detailed game plan for success.
Invest in the correct plant equipment that will perform each operation in a repeatable fashion.
Become a journeyman through putting in the time and money to learn all of the hard lessons.
Strive to raise the bar concerning all details.
Don't take shortcuts.
Buy the highest quality raw materials.
Concentrate on all aspects of your product engineering.
Seek peer check and review.
Constantly look for ways to improve all aspects of your product.
Always work from a detailed drawing while machining no matter how good or familiar you are with the process.
Establish definable detailed procedures over time that you follow concerning all aspects of your product development and don't deviate.
Develop ways to reduce your labor input coefficient by being smart concerning machine set ups, build multiple cues at a time and other task efficiencies.
Don't be afraid to charge up to $ 100.00 per hour for your work. If you don't believe you are worth that kind of money for doing skilled, artistic custom work, then no one else will pay it. Once you advertise and sell yourself as a commodity no one will ever view you product as a high value proprietary item.
Treat the customer in a fair and honest way.
Treat the customer in a fair and honest way.
Treat the customer in a fair and honest way.

If you do all of these things and more, the world will beat a path to your door. Once they get to your door it's up to you to keep it open. By the way did I say, Treat the customer in a fair and honest way. Because without that you will fail every time.

Just food for thought,

Rick Geschrey
Click to expand...

This is the best attitude I've seen. Has to breed success. Follow this and wait for the economy to swing and you'll be fine.
Bill
 
Eric answered it pretty well. I look at it kind of like the California gold rush where a few guys made good money, some made working wages but the smart ones mined the miners and sold them shovels, liquor and other supplies.

I've been friends with Joe Blackburn for about 30 years. Not too long after I met him I watched him doing cue repairs at a tournament. I'd been making cues for a few years at that

point and doing repairs a little longer. I asked Joe "Hey Joe, why don't you make any cues. You're well equipt and know your way around a cue stick pretty well." He replied "Sherm,

everyone who took woodshop in high school is out there building cues now. Why should I knock heads with all you guys? I'll just keep doing tips, ferrules and wraps & stuff I can

do in a few minutes and not get stressed out by people bugging me about when their cue is going to be done." Sometimes I wish I'd have followed Joe's business plan, but I was

already hooked on that feeling when you get a particularly nice cue all finished up and turn it over to the person who you built it for. It's a tough way to make a living and I've

already given up any notions of getting rich. My body is slowly giving out on me and I can't put in the hours I used to but I guess I'll be making cues, a few at a time until they

plant my ass in the dirt! I used to want my sons to come into business with me but I'm really glad they didn't. I hope they can have an easier route to the end of the trail.
 
qbilder said:
My situation, as I have ALWAYS said, is that I can afford to builds cues. I don't do it to make money. The costs outweigh the income. I luckily am in reasonable demand, unlike 95% of other builders. I get great prices for my work. I don't have to haggle or offer "deals" to try to move my stuff. Sometimes I make a decent nut and can take a vacation or take momma & kids out for a nice dinner. But no way in hell i'd depend on cues to pay any bills. Many times it costs me to build cues. It is very much a labor of love & that's all it is, or ever will be.

You cannot make a living building cues. It won't happen. It can't, unless you are a successful production outfit. Even then it's tough. The only custom guys making an ok income from it aren't making it on building cues, they are making it on repairs. Ask any builder to let his wife quit working, and quit doing repair work. He'll laugh at you.

Another thing to consider is that even though it's 99.9% impossible to make money building cues, your customers see you as a business that should compete for their patronage and kiss their asses to keep them happy. If you don't they rag you out all over online forums like this. So not only are you losing your ass doing something ONLY because you love it and can afford it, you now are expected to be a competitive business man. Sounds appealing, huh? And it's not their fault. They are spending lots of money to get your cue and they should be taken care of. They don't realize or even care that you are only doing the work because you enjoy it. It's their money regardless. It's not good for you, but you love building cues so you take the good with the bad & let it be. Heaven forbid you get tired of it and take a break, or else something bad happens that prevents you from working on cues. Then you are a low life trashy POS. You can't focus on what really matters & take care of your life & yourself. No, you need to first make contact with the dozens or hundreds of people wanting cues from you first & make sure it's ok with them that you might have an emergency. Or post on the forums all about your personal issues & hope folks understand.

So yeah, if you want no personal life, want to kiss everybody's ass, want to answer to everybody over everything going on in your life, and make absolutely no money of note to put up with it all, then by all means become a cue maker. That's when you know you are doing it ONLY because you love doing it.

For me, I love cues. I love building them, looking at them, talking about them, etc. I love the other cue nuts & love getting to know them. I love pool & pool cues. To me, it's most generally worth the aggravation. I endure it. Many do not. It's not much to look forward to but it's exactly the way it is. If you truly love it and have the fortitude to keep enduring it, then you'll be ok. You won't make money. But you'll enjoy yourself. For me it's all worth it when I get to become friends with other folks who love cues. We meet up at shows & tourneys and drink beer & eat & talk cues. It's fun. When I feel like quitting is when folks are selfish assholes who refuse to see things for what they really are, and try controlling my time & life. Those are generally the same folks you see who so quickly & freely pass judgement on people in the forum, even when they have absolutely nothing to do with the situations or know the person they are judging. But their voice is as loud as anybody else's because it's internet, and that really sucks at times. Fortunately they are usually outweighed by the good folks. Still sucks. So there you have it. Welcome to cue making.
Click to expand...

great post glad you are back
 
Thank you everyone for all the great responses. It is interesting to hear it from differant perspectives. I think some may have misinterpreted what my intentions are. I already new that full time cuemaking was not a realistic goal. I am just contemplating taking a little more serious. In order to do that one has to invest in a fairly large supply of materials. So I need to commit to some goals is all. My plan is to build mostly on spec so as I don't have to meet time schedules. I am fortunate here in Alberta because we have alot of league players and some of the best players in Canada reside here. There is also very few cue makers. I am probably one of maybe three in Alberta and from what I know the best equiped. (If there are any other Alberta makers who take offense to this remark I apologize for my ignerance to your existance). So I believe that there is much room for me here locally. The only negative is that most of the pool halls have all gone under here in Edmonton. Anyway I hope to have some more work to show here on AZ soon and I am anxious to get some feed back. So thanks again for all the responses and keep them coming.
 
Canadian cue said:
Thank you everyone for all the great responses. It is interesting to hear it from differant perspectives. I think some may have misinterpreted what my intentions are. I already new that full time cuemaking was not a realistic goal. I am just contemplating taking a little more serious. In order to do that one has to invest in a fairly large supply of materials. So I need to commit to some goals is all. My plan is to build mostly on spec so as I don't have to meet time schedules. I am fortunate here in Alberta because we have alot of league players and some of the best players in Canada reside here. There is also very few cue makers. I am probably one of maybe three in Alberta and from what I know the best equiped. (If there are any other Alberta makers who take offense to this remark I apologize for my ignerance to your existance). So I believe that there is much room for me here locally. The only negative is that most of the pool halls have all gone under here in Edmonton. Anyway I hope to have some more work to show here on AZ soon and I am anxious to get some feed back. So thanks again for all the responses and keep them coming.
Click to expand...

In point of fact, you are better equipped than 90% of all cue makers everywhere. Additionally you possess machining skills which is a huge plus.

Your goals are attainable as long as you aren't in a hurry. Establish yourself locally and regionally and do every job as well as you possibly can. After a while the work will come to you. You have to get around to new tournaments, leagues, and rooms and as tempting as it might seem, don't price your work cheaply. People almost always think that more expensive must be better.


As far as wood, the most important wood you need to accumulate and season is hard maple for shafts, handles, and fronts. Dedicate a percentage of your sales to buying extra wood every year. Eventually you will have enough.

If you love doing it, it can be a lot of fun and a little heartache and a lot of satisfaction
 
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