How mad should I be?

Rocket354

Rocket354

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I recently bought a brand new cue with a micarta ferrule. After a day or two of playing, I didn't like the tip on it and took it to the local billiards store to have it replaced.

What I got back was this:

IMG_1524.jpg


The ferrule was pure smooth and yellow up to the tip when I gave it to him, now the last I dunno 1/8" next to the tip has been scraped up during whatever is done in the tip changing process, giving the ferrule a band of slightly rough white.

I'm kind of annoyed for aesthetic reasons (strangely, I wear clothes with holes in them all the time, but my cues have to be perfect), but also for any potential resale value, as I'm always buying/selling/trading.

Is this guy a hack and I should never use him again? Is this expected with some ferrule materials and I should just deal with it? Should I be in there demanding restitution?
 
The guy is a hack. I wouldn't accept that. But the thing is I wouldnt let someone who would do that in the first place try to fix it.

I have had some real horror stories with "repairmen" now I only have Joe Blackburn do my stuff and it is never an issue.
 
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You can fix this yourself. Get some pledge & spray onto a paper towel, not the ferrule. Then twist wipe the ferrule up to where the dome of the tip starts. This will bring the ferrule back to color & darken the edge of the tip. DON'T touch the shaped area of the tip with the pledge or else you'll have to rescuff it, which isn't a huge deal. A good repair guy will likely have better stuff to use than pledge, but for you at home this will be the safest & easiest way to get it back to looking original again.

Stay away from this repair guy in future. The job looks somewhat clean & well performed but only half completed. He obviously doesn't care about asthetics or care what you think, either. It's only a quick & easy polishing step past what he has already done. Maybe he just doesn't know any better. Either way, get a good repair guy or a builder to do your future work.
 
JCIN said:
The guy is a hack. I wouldn't accept that. But the thing is I wouldnt let someone who would do that in the first place try to fix it.

I have had some real horror stories with "repairmen" now I only have Joe Blackburn do my stuff and it is never an issue.
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What he said!!!!! if i were you i wouldn't give this guy any more of your business
 
Thank you very much, guys. Unfortunately, where I live good guys are hard to come by. Southwest is busy to the point of ridiculousness, and there really isn't anyone else I trust much. This is the second local guy I've tried and the second time something has been screwed up (the first time was even worse). It's annoying both in time and expense sending stuff off by mail to be worked on, but that might be my only choice.
 
Looks like a Triangle Tip, Were You trying to soften the hit up some with the change by any chance? Anyway triangle tips can be hard to flush with the ferrule without doing any sanding at all, at least some minimum sanding is usually required if you want it to have that one piece feel like It's part of the ferrule.

As far as the issue, looks like when the tip was flushed up, some of the sealer was sanded off, and It was never resealed & polished. Most people try to stay off the ferrules as much as they can, but as mentioned, It's not always possible to stay completely off of them if you want the tip perfectly matched, so You do the best that You can to keep all sanding to a minimum. It also doesn't look to be polished or burnished on that part. It does look like they tried to stay off the rest of the ferrule or else It would probably look like the sanded part, but that's another can of worms to be opened.

how deep that part was sanded I can't tell from the pictures, so I don't know If age and/or polishing was giving It that yellow color You mention liking, or if the type of sealer originally used had some part in It.

One thing I can tell you is most guys wouldn't let that leave the shop without resealing and blending the colors back in, because they would prefer You to think they are so good that they didn't even need to touch the ferrule. Some guys may only be getting 7-10 bucks a tip and feel It's not worth the time, as where others will still complete the job the way It should be done. For me I charge a minimum of $15, and I won't let anything like that leave the shop I'd rather get less jobs and make sure I'm as satisfied as possible. Getting in too much of a rush could result in that kind of work slipping out too I suppose.

I don't really know what the deal is there, so won't try to say I know anything for sure, I have no idea what circumstances they could have run into that are beyond My knowledge of your situation, can only say that most guys wouldn't let something like that knowingly get out, but in all fairness to the person that did the work, with some guys Your whole ferrule may have come back that whiter color as a result of trying to fix It. Me I have a few sealer mixes that I make, they start from a more yellowish color, and go through the spectrum into a clear color, I prefer to use the clearer colors on the shafts most of the time, but nice to have the yellower shades around for touch up like in this case. Sometimes the heat from simply burnishing gives a change in color tone, that just depends on the material. That part of the ferrule does not even look to be polished by the picture, but I can see some shine on the tip.

Anyway without seeing in person and seeing how deep the sanding is, I could not begin to form an opinion other then the job simply looks unfinished to Me.
 
The yellow is the natural color of the micarta, as far as I know. The tip is a milk dud. The guy charge me $7.50 and I gave him $10 and told him to keep it as I was in a hurry and didn't realize what it looked like, and he had also trimmed another tip of mine that had mushroomed. He said he had burnished the tips.

I will try the pledge idea and see how it works.
 
Truthfully, from the picture furnished, which by the way is large enough and in very good focus, it looks, to me, a very nice job as far as it went. It just wasn't finished. If he would have just slightly hit the ferrule with 1200 or 1500 sand paper and then a little rubbing or polishing compound all would have been shiny and even and we wouldn't be having this discussion. It was a very reasonable price also.

Dick
 
Have you contacted the repairman to ask him to fix it?
He may have just gotten distracted and forgotten to do the rest; we all have a bad day sometime.
 
ELBeau said:
Have you contacted the repairman to ask him to fix it?
He may have just gotten distracted and forgotten to do the rest; we all have a bad day sometime.
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No, that was the point of the thread, as I'm not familiar with the whole process and I wanted to get opinions. You bring up a good point though but I don't think he's in again until Thursday.

What would a repairman use to fix it (the stuff better than pledge)?
 
I hate to bring this up, but is that a dent ring just below the ferrule? Like from a collet being squeezed too tight?

Scott
 
ScottR said:
I hate to bring this up, but is that a dent ring just below the ferrule? Like from a collet being squeezed too tight?

Scott
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I didn't notice that before,but yeah Now that You mentioned that's what It looks like to me also. good observation.
 
As a pure beginner in working on cues I can honestly say that if it were my cue I'd be annoyed too. He simply didn't finish the job. It wouldn't have taken the guy but a few extra seconds to make sure that the ferrule looked like it did when you brought it in.

I've been using micro fine 2000 paper as my last step in ferrule/tip replacement and that shines everything up really nice.

I'm just now starting up my cue repair hobby/business and I can tell you with 100% certainty that this will never happen in my shop.
 
Rocket354 said:
No, that was the point of the thread, as I'm not familiar with the whole process and I wanted to get opinions. You bring up a good point though but I don't think he's in again until Thursday.

What would a repairman use to fix it (the stuff better than pledge)?
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I use sanding sealer. Most generally, the shaft was coated with sanding sealer before it was fine sanded & polished from the builder. This will penetrate the surface of the wood AND ferrule material & harden to a smooth texture that can be polished to a higher degree than wood alone. It also brings out the color in that ferrule material, which i'm 99.9% certain is some of Mason's linen base micarta. Pledge will bring the color back just fine. If you had a lathe, a touch of sanding sealer would do it but isn't neccesary. Even cue wax would do it. Anything that will penetrate the surface of the material just enough to fill the microscopic pores is all that is needed. I suggested pledge because it's safe & you at home can not screw it up. The absolute worst case scenario is you get some on the tip surface & need to rescuff before playing.

As for the collet ring, yeah, I noticed that right away but didn't want to say anything. It could be a dent or it could be a cut line where the ferrule was cut down to size, then the shaft wood sanded to meet it, which gives the builder a high degree of accuracy on meeting the tip diameter. It'll sometimes leave a very fine line just behind the ferrule, but cannot be felt. So I didn't say anything because it very well may not be a dent ring.
 
Whatever it is below the ferrule is not a dent as I can't feel it, so I assume it's the cut line Eric mentioned.. I noticed it, too, and it's not a problem for me at all.

Also, you have a good eye, Eric, as that is definitely micarta from Mason (the cue itself is a Sly).

On my way to go pick up some pledge in a few minutes...
 
Just an update:

I tried the pledge and it didn't work too well, unfortunately (or I applied it wrong). I sprayed it on a paper towel and rubbed it around the ferrule. That brought maybe half of the yellow color back but it still seemed fairly rough. I played with the cue a few times and the entire band just filled up with chalk, so it was somewhat unsightly to someone as anal as I am...

But as it turns out, a guy I play league with is a recreational cuemaker and has lots of experience doing basic repair so I gave it to him to look at. While I was at it had him replace the tip (milk duds are nice, but I still like the feel of a sniper better). Less than 24 hours later, this is what I got back:

IMG_1566.jpg


Absolutely perfect. So I may have killed two birds with one stone--fixed my cue and found a guy I can trust to do my tips.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice.
 
Great to hear!!! The first guy must have used a heavy grit paper to bland the tip to ferrule. The filling with chalk is a dead giveaway. This is also why the pledge wouldn't work. It needed to be sanded smooth to a fine degree or else the pores wouldn't seal. That's a beginner mistake, not professional. Regardless, nice to see things worked out for you.
 
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