Cut circular? So when they're glued they're no long flat?
You made cues before. Is it fair to to say you failed in that endeavor?
Has the quality difference between "custom" and "production" become negligible?
- Thread starter Shawn Armstrong
- Start date
Cut circular? So when they're glued they're no long flat?
You made cues before. Is it fair to to say you failed in that endeavor?
Yes, on my own.
I found repairs to be much more profitable. I broke my hand in 2012. Stopped while my hand healed. Never had the bug to go back. I'm sitting on a pile of wood. Will be selling it off shortly.
Nope. I pursued another endeavour that paid much more than making cues. Cues were always a hobby. Failing would mean I didn't make a cue. I made a bunch of them. I just valued my time with my family more than my time on a lathe.
Fair enough?
Here's a picture....
Attachments
Ok. thanks.
Could you - or someone else - explain why it's a good thing to have a "cored cue".
I've heard the term but don't understand why that's an advantage.
Is it supposed to help it not warp?
Weight?
Feel?
That's fair .
Would it be fair to call you a knocker ?
You found out making cues takes a lot of time and sacrifices and that it wasn't that profitable for you. Now, you're knocking that industry and making fun of the people who exists in that industry ?
Way to get hits on your website.
This post was actually first here on AZB.
LOL............as usual
No, actually the post was first on Rec.Sport.Billiard in 1999.
I went and found it to post it on AZB in one of these similar discussions long ago. Then I chose to put it on my blog so as to have a place to always be able to find it easier without searching.
I always give credit to the source and cite where things come from. Next time try a little harder when you want to knock me.
Here is the full text from my blog.
"What is the “hit” of a pool cue?
This subject is in eternal debate among players and cue makers. My take on it is that how a cue feels is a very personal thing based on a person’s experience and influences. However here is a very interesting experiment performed by the late John McChesney one of the three founders of the Texas Express Nine Ball Tour, and the two surviving members Randy Goetlicher and Robin Adair,
Here’s something interesting we tried in 1991:
At an event we had 16 cues with the butt, joint and the ferrules covered with masking tape…then numbered. No one could “see” if the cue was a steel, plastic or wood joint (as in a Pete), nor detect by the style of ferrule. We had 70 players…each hit balls with the cues throughout the weekend.
The results:
Of nearly 800 attempts over the time period, the players guessed wrong about what type joint was in the cue more than 7 out of 10 times. A top pro (Meucci staffer) happened to be there, having done an exhibition and the cuehe liked the most during the attempts: He thought was surely a Meucci, plastic joint when in reality it was an older Adams with a piloted steel joint; and additionally guessed the Meucci he shot with as a cue with a steel joint.
Again, I maintain that cues with different joint materials may sound differently; may be balanced differently, but what is “hit” ? Doesn’t “hit” have to do with all the senses: Vibration (feel), sound, balance, etc. What is a “soft” hit? What is a “hard” hit? (what does this mean, if not the sound the cue makes upon impact, or are people ref. to the vibration in the butt?) Does a hard hit vibrate more and make a different sound? A soft hit vibrate less with a different sound? I maintain that the primary criteria that differentiates one cue from another begins with: The tip (soft, med or hard) The shaft diameter and density of the wood The taper (or stiffness of the shaft) To this day, I still don’t believe the joint has
much to do with the reaction of the cueball off the shaft, rather it is the 3 aforementioned that have far more bearing on how a cue plays than anything else. Remember, what makes the predator shaft play differently is what is located at the tip, inside the shaft, the ferrule and the laminations….not the joint or butt.
In closing, our experiment asked which cue the players liked best: Of the 70 players, nearly 55 liked the hit of two cues with different numbers: When the two were exposed, they both were sneaky petes, wood to wood joints, (one a Scruggs and the other a Huebler); both about 19 oz., both about 13 1/4mm and tended to be on the stiff side of “hit”. By the way, the 55 who liked the hit of these two cues: more than half thought they would be steel jointed.
- John McChesney Posted on Rec.Sport.Billiards circa 1999"
Again, nope. I had an epiphany that no one could really make a cue better than the production houses. I played just as well with my:
Keith Josey
Thomas Wayne
Mike Webb
Prather
Tim Prince
Paul Dayton
Ted Harris
Dan Breggin
Scott Zachow
Steve Klein
JW Petree
Dominiak
Schuler
Rick Howard
Cory Barnhart
etc
etc
As I did with a Predator, a Schon, a Joss, a Cuetec, etc.
So, I guess I'm a knocker, in the fact that the custom guy believes he can do something that the production guys can't. Dan Janes and Keith Josey are friends. They discuss cues and cuemaking all the time. And, before skins comes in and speaks for Keith, I got that information directly from both Dan AND Keith.
If you consider custom cuemaking as "art", that's fine. Like I have said earlier, the point of the thread was not to knock custom cues. It was to recognize that the quality of production cues has gone way up, not that customs have come down.
Get back to calling me an idiot, etc. What I have noticed is that there are a few of you that gravitate to arguing. And you lose sight of the original post.
I'm sorry, Joey, that you feel the need to attack me, or make comments about me - how I used to make cues, and don't anymore. Perhaps you should also knock the ton of talented cuemakers that don't make cues anymore due to them wanting more than cuemaking has to offer. Dan Breggin was extremely talented. He doesn't make cues anymore, either.
Do I have any desire to make cues again? Nope. And it has nothing to do with not being able to build a cue. It has everything to do with wanting to do other things with my time.
There's a special forest filled with special trees. These trees are reserved for the custom cuemaker. They make 30 cues a year, but you'd better believe that they make a better cue than Joss, who has made more than 100,000 cues.....because they use the word "custom". Did I get it right this time?
I agree that modern production cuemaking standards are very high. But I don’t minimize the qualities presented by some older production cuemakers. Older Schon, Joss, Palmer, and Meucci cues still have quite loyal followings. Over the years, I have visited cue shows and find that custom cuemaking capabilities are also at an all-time high if looks is your focus. But going through those shows and trying a few cues, I have only once walked away sorry that I did not buy a cue because it felt special.
While I applaud cuemakers who provide quality cues to players who cannot afford custom cues, I do not agree that production cues are on par with the best customs. I have owned 4 cues which had that special feel that I have never found in a production cue. I don’t play with production LD shafts, so that is one factor. But even on my favorite custom, at least one production LD shaft plays better than when it is attached to any other cue butt. I would prefer that my favorite go-to playing cue is the same cue that I feel comfortable taking on the road and that it could easily be replaced if something bad happened. That is how I feel about my golf clubs. But it is not that way for me with pool cues.
I don’t have any nuts to hug because I don’t have any cues on order. But I enjoy the qualities of cues that I own and feel that I should show my appreciation by speaking up. JMO
While I applaud cuemakers who provide quality cues to players who cannot afford custom cues, I do not agree that production cues are on par with the best customs. I have owned 4 cues which had that special feel that I have never found in a production cue. I don’t play with production LD shafts, so that is one factor. But even on my favorite custom, at least one production LD shaft plays better than when it is attached to any other cue butt. I would prefer that my favorite go-to playing cue is the same cue that I feel comfortable taking on the road and that it could easily be replaced if something bad happened. That is how I feel about my golf clubs. But it is not that way for me with pool cues.
I don’t have any nuts to hug because I don’t have any cues on order. But I enjoy the qualities of cues that I own and feel that I should show my appreciation by speaking up. JMO
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Well, I'll give you my feelings on it, but I'll get corrected in no time, flat.
A laminated, or straight grain, core will help the cue stay straighter. Wood will move. Anything that can be done to stabilize the movement will help. Certain types of wood, especially burls, move a lot. Also, coring helps with weight distribution. Someone may want an ebony cue that weighs 18oz. That's nearly impossible without coring a cue, and it also, again, helps with stability. But, I'm probably wrong. Skins and Joey will correct my mistakes in a later message.
When the cuemakers roundtable happened Bill Schick was emphasizing the tolerances of guys like Szamboti and Balabushka. He said they understood how to fit the parts with tight tolerances so that they would hold up over time.
As one of the folks on this forum with experience over hundreds of cues from the cheapest crap to the highest quality I can say that I do agree with Bill Schick in that cuemakers known for building cues that hold up over time are also known for building cues with an exceptional "hit".
But even then, things happen. I have a cue from one of the best living cue makers, a good player himself and somehow a piece of glue got loose under the pin and now rattles. I got the cue well used so who knows what abuses it suffered before coming to me. I know that handing it to my 3 and 6 year olds the other day didn't help. So now I have to get it fixed
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I think that this is an appropriate place to tell this story.
Years ago, in 2003 I was working for Sterling Gaming and they were introducing a line called Fury Cues. These cues were a collaboration between a chinese factory and Kaz Miki of Mezz and Sterling Gaming. I was at the BCA Nationals in Vegas and playing the singles. I didn't even bring cues so whenever I had a match I would just grab a cue off the wall and go play.
I had finished with my match and was rushing back and Jerry Olivier was talking to Dan Dishaw and he stops me. He asks to see the cue and says to Dan, "see this is why we have a hard time selling cues, how much is this cue John?" I said it's $200. Jerry says, "see Dan how can we compete with this?" while turning the cue.
At the same time all three of us see that a white square is missing from the ring work. I grab the cue and say, "That's why it's only $200" and walk away.
I am just curious, why do you call it "plastic crap" ? What evidence proves that wood is better than plastic? Because you never saw it it doesn't mean it's bad, is it?
Also, I think it is not accurate in comparing the wood choice of custom cue and production cue in general.
Speaking of cue production, there is no way a small custom shop surpasses a production line in term of cost, considering they are using the same materials.And now you can have the so-called production cue with the best wood quality you can ask for with cheaper price.
Otherwise, the only thing IMO that left to defend the superiority of custom cue is the
"secret receipt" of cue constructing. Although I bet there are some cue builder in Taiwan already scarified a SW, broke it into pieces and copy everything from inside
Enlighten me on this, show me one thread on AZ that does not exasperate high levels of "false fact" base ignorance perpetuated as an "arguable" opinion.
The opening question is legit and debatable. Thread like this actually hurts many sellers on this site because they give SOME unbiased opinions.
No sellers want buyers to know the truth that for 99% of the players, a good production cue gives no handicap for them in playability.
Another truth, at least 90% of the so-called custom cues are not worth the "custom cue" word attached to them. And yes they are below the quality of good production cues. Some guys set up a shop in his basement and start selling his PJ for 300 400 bucks, come on give me a break.
Last truth, production cue will never achieve the level of top top tier cuemakers, that's for sure.
I was one of the first to start coring cues. I started in 1989.
There were several reasons I thought coring was a good idea.
I made a lot of ebony front cues and it was a way to control the weight and also the sound the cue made.
I had studied laminated beams for a house and could see the advantages in strength and stability.
I started with just plain maple cores and quickly switched to the pie laminated ones. That was about 1990.
In my opinion the way a cue plays seems to depend more on the core than the exterior wood.
There is no question that cored cues stay straighter over time.
Bill S.