How mad should I be?

Man...Im freaking crazy about my stuff looking good also....Just as soon as I seen this...I would have showed him and pretty much asked him if I had to come back another time for him to finish this up? :confused:

I HATE my ferruls looking like crap, and my shafts dirty...Im always washing my hands so I dont get the cue dirty as well. I just like my cues to play well, but also be pretty. My cousin exclusively uses that crappy red chalk...and his ferrule is almost as red as the chalk is.....every time i look at his cue its like a HUGE eye sore....I dont know....I guess I am just 2 picky....but yes, I wouldnt have even accepted this back looking like it did...either he would fix it right...or I would just take my buisiness elsewhere...
 
qbilder said:
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.




I think I agree with that assessment.:p There's a lot more to sealing pores off then just slapping some product on It, sometimes sanding down to the fine grits, and burnishing as It should be done, is also enough to seal some ferrule materials against chalk without even a need for any type of sealer added, while others will also require a sealer to properly carry out that task. I'm surprised there's no leather from sanding the tip staining that area. Must have been sanding in one direction. Not saying that's a bad thing or good thing though, just a observation.

Pledge is old school, My dad use to use that stuff on his shafts many years ago.

I have been using slip-stic for a few years now and have been happy, but I'm down to 2 bottles, and don't yet know what I'll use when that's gone.

I had a product that I made up Myself tried, and liked when It was freshly polished, but the problem was It didn't last long enough before It wore off.
 
I found out how he got it looking so perfect. He just sanded down the ferrule and shaft till it was all nice and smooth. Notice the other line that was just under the ferrule is no longer there.

So now my tip, which was 12.9mm, is now 12.6mm, and stays that diameter down to about 1.5 inches below the ferrule where over the course of maybe another inch it goes out to 12.9mm.

Call me uptight but that just doesn't seem right to me. I'd be a lot more mad if I wasn't already planning on having my shaft turned down to about 12.6mm anyways (although I'll still need to have someone smooth out the taper), but it just strikes me as quite bad practice to do stuff like that to someone's shaft in the course of tip/ferrule repair.

Strike another guy off the list (that's three for three in bad jobs done). I guess I'm stuck shipping my stuff off to cuemakers in other states just to have basic work done.
 
Rocket354 said:
I found out how he got it looking so perfect. He just sanded down the ferrule and shaft till it was all nice and smooth. Notice the other line that was just under the ferrule is no longer there.

So now my tip, which was 12.9mm, is now 12.6mm, and stays that diameter down to about 1.5 inches below the ferrule where over the course of maybe another inch it goes out to 12.9mm.

Call me uptight but that just doesn't seem right to me. I'd be a lot more mad if I wasn't already planning on having my shaft turned down to about 12.6mm anyways (although I'll still need to have someone smooth out the taper), but it just strikes me as quite bad practice to do stuff like that to someone's shaft in the course of tip/ferrule repair.

Strike another guy off the list (that's three for three in bad jobs done). I guess I'm stuck shipping my stuff off to cuemakers in other states just to have basic work done.

I was afraid of that when I saw the pic and did not see the dimple in the wood. :(

I was hoping maybe the shaft was rotated 180 from the original pictures and it just wasn't showing up. It has nothing to do with being uptight, that is very bad IMO.

It would have been telling if you could have mic'd the ferrule after getting it from the first guy to see how serious the sanding was where the luster was lost compared to the rest of the ferrule.

Sad.

Kelly
 
I was thinking the same but didn't think it'd require taking off .3mm, maybe more like .1mm....

I find it's much easier to spend an extra $20 in mailing some shafts off to a reputable person than to try to find someone through trial and error.
 
Rocket354 said:
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.


that looks 700% better. ask your friend what he used for us will you?
 
poolplayer2093 said:
that looks 700% better. ask your friend what he used for us will you?

You missed his next post. Go back and read it.

He used sand paper.
 
It shouldn't have teken more than .1mm to clean that first job up, but then again how do you know the first one wasn't already that bad? Just some 400, 600, 1000 grit quick hits would have cleaned the ferrule/tip area up without ever touching the wood & without taking off any measurable diameter. Sealing with a good sanding sealer would have given back the lost diameter plus a little, while sealing everything off from chalk & dirt. But again, who knows how bad it actually was after the first job?
 
Well I measured my tip out at 12.93mm when I first got the cue, and after the guy screwed up the ferrule, it was still right at that. Now it's 12.60 at the top of the ferrule and about 12.65 at the base. I'm just really lucky that I was going to have someone turn the shaft down to 12.6, anyways.

It's not like any of these guys were random, they all came recommended by someone--this most recent guy does the tips for everyone on his team and they're all fairly strong players, and the guy who messed up the ferrule originally did a great job on a friend's tip which is why I went with him. The previous guy who really messed something up owns a pool hall here in town and does the tips for all the house cues plus a bunch of the regulars.

The thing is you can never predict what someone will do with any one job, or when the job asks for something a little different. But yeah, getting the cue back at say 12.85mm instead of 12.93mm isn't really an issue, but if the job entailed really taking down the tip (and just the last two-three inches at that) I guess I would hope most people would have the common sense to call and explain that and see what I wanted.

But no point in complaining any more, what's done is done. I'll just ship it off to someone...
 
Not to defend the guy who did this, but it seems beginner...ish. He seems to have an eye & drive for fine detail, but not yet experienced enough to be really good at it. It would be nice if you could politely & respectfully express your concerns with him, let him know where & how he got it wrong. Otherwise he'll never get better. He'll think he did a great job. It may hurt his feelings & pride, but if he's worth his salt then he'll not make this mistake again. He'll get better, & better. A little constructive criticism goes a long way with guys who are detail oriented. I think it will help him a lot. In return, it'll help everybody in town out a lot. So don't scratch him off, just help him learn.
 
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