How much time ?

[chokenstroke]

How much time does a cuemaker spend making a new cue?

I dont mean the time spent waiting on wood to stablize, glue to dry, or anything like that.
Only counting the time he is actualy working on the cue how long does it take.
Forget the automated equipment that allows a cuemaker to do more than one thing at a time and assume he stands and watches the cnc machine cut the wood and count that time also.

One simple cue from start to finish.

Let's use as an example a plain cue with no inlays and simple rings with one shaft. 3/8 x 10 flat faced pin. no wrap, and a clear coat finish.

I would take a wild guess at less than 40 actual working hours start to finish.
Material cost could be less than $100 and that is counting the electricty used.
Am I far from wrong here?

 

[MVPCues]

How much time does a cuemaker spend making a new cue?

I dont mean the time spent waiting on wood to stablize, glue to dry, or anything like that.
Only counting the time he is actualy working on the cue how long does it take.
Forget the automated equipment that allows a cuemaker to do more than one thing at a time and assume he stands and watches the cnc machine cut the wood and count that time also.

One simple cue from start to finish.

Let's use as an example a plain cue with no inlays and simple rings with one shaft. 3/8 x 10 flat faced pin. no wrap, and a clear coat finish.

I would take a wild guess at less than 40 actual working hours start to finish.
Material cost could be less than $100 and that is counting the electricty used.
Am I far from wrong here?

The time spent probably varies quite a bit from person to person, and it is tough to judge this. A cuemaker will make a ring billet that he can cut many rings from, or a bunch of billets at once, make a pass on 100 shafts at a time... spray finish 5 cues at the same time..figuring out the time portioned to each cue is tough, but I would guess 40 hours is quite high, probably more like 10. If that elegant but somewhat plain cue sells for $400, and there is $100 in material, and it takes him 40 hours to do it, that is less than 8 dollars an hour he makes.

This is just what I think, so take it for what its worth. I would love to hear what the cuemakers have to say as well.
Kelly

 

[rhncue]

The time spent probably varies quite a bit from person to person, and it is tough to judge this. A cuemaker will make a ring billet that he can cut many rings from, or a bunch of billets at once, make a pass on 100 shafts at a time... spray finish 5 cues at the same time..figuring out the time portioned to each cue is tough, but I would guess 40 hours is quite high, probably more like 10. If that elegant but somewhat plain cue sells for $400, and there is $100 in material, and it takes him 40 hours to do it, that is less than 8 dollars an hour he makes.

This is just what I think, so take it for what its worth. I would love to hear what the cuemakers have to say as well.
Kelly

It certainly does not take forty hours to build a plain jane cue but it can take some cue-makers much more time than others - building the same cue. Very much matters upon the equipment you have available and the experiance the builder has attained. With minimal equipment, it would take much longer than someone who has a lot of equipment set up for one purpose. It's much more efficient to be able to go from one machine to the next without having to tear down a set-up and then building another. How many parts he makes at one time can save a lot of time. When making a lot of parts at one time you save on set-up time and you also get into a rythm. When turning handles I'll do a hundred at a time, at least fifty ferrules, twenty or so half-splice prongs and so on. It might take an hour to set my mill up for a half-splice prong and about ten minutes to cut it. So I can take an hour and a half to set up and tear down for one prong or four or five hours to do about twenty of them. This is one reason why a customed ordered cue usually costs more than already built cue as sometimes these set-ups are required for one cue. Another reason that custom ordered cues may cost more than a prebuilt cue are for cosmetic reasons. If someone orders a custom made cue then he, rightiously so, expects a cue, perfect, as he had ordered it. Some times when building a cue there may be unforseen cosmetic blemishes such as suger or a bark inclusion. In this case the cue must be rebuilt for the customer as he was not expecting thoses blemishes when placing the order. In buying or selling a ready built cue, the purchaser has had the ability to see these imperfections before purchase and if it doesn't bother him then it's a good sale.
Dick