Hypothetical Cue Costs

HawaiianEye

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Let's suppose someone supplied the following materials to a cue maker and asked them to make a cue. Since all the major components were provided up front, the only things that would be required would be the labor, joint collars, glue, and clear coat finish. What would be an approximate final cost?

AAA shaft dowel
Ivory joint collar
Ivory butt cap
Ivory ferrule
full-splice John Davis blank with Titlist-type veneers
rubber butt bumper
uni-lock pin & insert
50 yards Irish linen wrap
laminated tip
weight bolt

Roughly $575.00 in parts

NOTE: I acquired these prices from various websites and generally chose the most expensive items and rounded them up a bit from retail prices. I know cue makers usually buy in larger quantities and can get better prices. I'm just interested in what the "overhead" (labor, glue, finish, etc.) would be from one cue maker to another.
 
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This thread is against the forum rules.
Pricing of cues and parts should be done in private.
Not trying to be the forum police but the rule is to help protect us cuebuilders.

Thanks
Lee
LP Custom Cues
 
About the same price if you went to Goodyear Tires and brought 4 tires to have them replace your tires.
 
JoeyInCali said:
About the same price if you went to Goodyear Tires and brought 4 tires to have them replace your tires.
Click to expand...

I have a VERY good analogy here.

When I worked at Porsche they sent a Turbo S to the dealership with one tire mounted backwards. When it was noticed, an apprentice took it over to the tire machine to turn it around. IIRC, they are 295 30's. I can remember that they are extremely difficult to work with. Anyway, 5 minutes later the very special unobtanium wheel was damaged and all 4 had to be sent out for chrome.

You can buy the best parts in the world and it only takes 5 minutes for someone to ruin them.....
 
LPCUSTOMCUES said:
This thread is against the forum rules.
Pricing of cues and parts should be done in private.
Not trying to be the forum police but the rule is to help protect us cuebuilders.

Thanks
Lee
LP Custom Cues
Click to expand...

Sorry...didn't know posting prices of cue parts was against the rules. Like I said, I got the prices from various sources and rounded them up. I didn't associate any parts or prices with any source or name a source. I am just listing what "some" sites consider their "highest quality" parts.

And "whom" do the "cuebuilders" need to be protected from? Each other? I'm just trying to get a general "labor" charge and know the length of "labor" hours it would take to assemble this "hypothetical" cue. Are cue makers labor prices "SECRET"?

If I go to Sears or Firestone or any other place to get something done, they will tell you up front what the labor charge is and an approximate number of "labor" hours it would take to get the job done.
 
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I've got to agree with Lee here. From the sticky at the top of this section, per the Moderator - "Pricing for materials and work should be discussed in private or started as a thread in the " Wanted / Sale " area. This is not a sales forum."

If you want a price from a certain cuemaker, contact him and ask him. In general, the more experienced builders charge more because of their experience.

Many cuemakers won't build with materials someone else supplied. They want to make sure both wood and ivory are seasoned to avoid problems. Who's to blame if the supplied parts are flawed, crack, warp, etc? Are you willing to absorb any losses and waive the right to any returns if the maker uses your parts?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but truth be told, you probably wasted a lot of time buying parts other than the blank. My guess is that by paying retail for all those parts, the sum total of your cue will be the same or more expensive than if you let the cuemaker do his thing.

That said, best of luck with the cue. Those Davis blanks are a great part of history.
 
Just my 2 cents

Since you figured out how much are all the cue parts cost. How about try to figure out how much would eveything things else cost like : Research and development, Labor rate, Cue machineries, set up each maching time and parts search, making parts for your own machine, learning from your own mistake, spray booth, paint guns, Tooling, Electrical , Sand papers, buffer machine, buffing compounds and many more......when you figure out that total number please letme know so I know how much money and time I lost.
 
FLYINGSNAIL said:
Since you figured out how much are all the cue parts cost. How about try to figure out how much would eveything things else cost like : Research and development, Labor rate, Cue machineries, set up each maching time and parts search, making parts for your own machine, learning from your own mistake, spray booth, paint guns, Tooling, Electrical , Sand papers, buffer machine, buffing compounds and many more......when you figure out that total number please letme know so I know how much money and time I lost.
Click to expand...

that was gooooddd!!!!!
 
HawaiianEye said:
If I go to Sears or Firestone or any other place to get something done, they will tell you up front what the labor charge is and an approximate number of "labor" hours it would take to get the job done.
Click to expand...

But to use your same analogy, you just asked Sears, Firestone, Goodyear and all the rest to discuss prices at the same table at the same time. That's why we use PM's instead.

Alan
 
ELBeau said:
... I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but truth be told, you probably wasted a lot of time buying parts other than the blank. ...
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I'd guess that the OP has not actually purchased all those parts and doesn't plan to. He probably just wants "labor" information to use in understanding/discussing/negotiating cue prices.
 
AtLarge said:
I'd guess that the OP has not actually purchased all those parts and doesn't plan to. He probably just wants "labor" information to use in understanding/discussing/negotiating cue prices.
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I haven't purchased anything yet, but that doesn't mean I have no intention of purchasing something and having a cue made. That is why I was asking for information. Price wouldn't necessarily be the issue in the building of the cue...playability would be the issue. I would always go to the builder that I thought made the best hitting cue for me and it may not be the one who charged the most and was the most well-known.
 
HawaiianEye said:
I haven't purchased anything yet, but that doesn't mean I have no intention of purchasing something and having a cue made. That is why I was asking for information. Price wouldn't necessarily be the issue in the building of the cue...playability would be the issue. I would always go to the builder that I thought made the best hitting cue for me and it may not be the one who charged the most and was the most well-known.
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No top maker I know would do it in the first place. Guys who know what they are doing have spent years refining techniques and methods that work for them. Those include the whys and hows of the components they use. To think someone can do the same job of selecting materials that will all come together as well by picking them off a website is a bit of an insult to a cuemaker IMO.

To sum it up I guess I would say I probably wouldnt want any cue from a cuemaker who would actually do that in the first place. Picking a shaft blank or something is one thing but showing up with a bag of parts for a whole cue is totally different.

If all you want is an assembled cue then that is exactly what you will get.
 
HawaiianEye said:
Sorry...didn't know posting prices of cue parts was against the rules. Like I said, I got the prices from various sources and rounded them up. I didn't associate any parts or prices with any source or name a source. I am just listing what "some" sites consider their "highest quality" parts.

And "whom" do the "cuebuilders" need to be protected from? Each other? I'm just trying to get a general "labor" charge and know the length of "labor" hours it would take to assemble this "hypothetical" cue. Are cue makers labor prices "SECRET"?

If I go to Sears or Firestone or any other place to get something done, they will tell you up front what the labor charge is and an approximate number of "labor" hours it would take to get the job done.
Click to expand...

You are not counting overhead and the amount they have invested in equipment and the years of college of hard knocks they went through to get there.

If you don't care what it looks like, balance point and many other things to numeros to mention it would be cheap. If you want it Pristine it would be expensive.

Just the finish alone, look at car painting places, prices and quality are all over the board.

Had you come into my old cue shop with all that and asked I would have told you it looked like you wanted to be the cuemaker and should look into buying the equipment and finishing it yourself.

You will find buying a Print of a Master piece far cheper than the original Masterpiece itself.
 
price of parts and price of knowledge very different

lets take this one more step, get a scapel, some thread and a needle, go to a doctor and ask what an operation would cost, must be cheap because you have all the materials, accept the knowledge and experience.
 
HawaiianEye said:
I haven't purchased anything yet, but that doesn't mean I have no intention of purchasing something and having a cue made. That is why I was asking for information. Price wouldn't necessarily be the issue in the building of the cue...playability would be the issue. I would always go to the builder that I thought made the best hitting cue for me and it may not be the one who charged the most and was the most well-known.
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Please edit your post to remove the prices.

Many members would be happy to discuss details via PMs

Dale(Private Mojoist)
 
desi2960 said:
lets take this one more step, get a scapel, some thread and a needle, go to a doctor and ask what an operation would cost, must be cheap because you have all the materials, accept the knowledge and experience.
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Actually, in some cases Health Insurers are doing just that.

They will send you to India for your surgery....but you may have to supply a few things.


The guy asked an odd question, but it's not totally unreasonable and he didn't violate any rule as far as I can tell. If a cue maker responds in the open forum with pricing that violates a rule I think.


Many top cue makers build cues from blanks; Davis, Brunswick, and many others blanks. Also, many top makers have occasionally use a material sourced by the buyer. The unusual thing is the notion of supplying everything.

Sending somebody everything would be a bit weird in the first place though. A cue maker would have to have no materials on hand for that to be necessary.


Even as a question posed for mental masturbation it does not seem to make a lot of sense...but he asked it.

How about some more mental masturbation:

Some maker here have said in the open forum they will not lift a finger for less than $100 an hour. So one would ask how long (in work hours) it would take to build the cue.

Some tradesman use a rule of thumb for rough estimates: Double the cost of materials.

The construction methods were not noted: Cored? What finish? What type of joinery? Metal screw in the A joint? Tenon? Live threading? What style of joint? Yes I know it said Ivory, but there are numerous ways to construct it.

I can imagine that the way the question is posed ruffles some feathers, even if it's just for conversation.


.
 
This is an open forum used to discuss all things pool. If you can't ask a question like this here then where would you? It makes me laugh to think that we are going to censor information on pool over the Internet to protect the "cue builders"

If the cue maker provides enough value then he shouldn't be worried with publishing labor rates.

To think that people are equating the knowledge of a doctor to a cue builder is kinda crazy.

A better analogy would be to take all pieces of a car to a mechanic for assembly. He would quote you a labor rate and do his best to estimate the hours. You would then be able to make an educated decision. If you brought work to a top mechanic that he didn't want to do then he would just say no. Why should this be any different?
 
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HawaiianEye said:
I haven't purchased anything yet, but that doesn't mean I have no intention of purchasing something and having a cue made. That is why I was asking for information. Price wouldn't necessarily be the issue in the building of the cue...playability would be the issue. I would always go to the builder that I thought made the best hitting cue for me and it may not be the one who charged the most and was the most well-known.
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I'm confused by your thread. Your price checking parts and want labor rates? Were not mechanics, there is no cuemakers labor rate book. If you want a cue quote I'm sure in a PM or e-mail you can achieve that. If you knew the amount of hours spent on a cue vs. the final cost you would be shocked. You have done some homework on material costs, I suggest doing some on what it takes to actually make it happpen. I'm not trying to judge you, just giving some information to think about. Moderators should have already removed the prices by now.
 
Billyard said:
This is an open forum used to discuss all things pool. If you can't ask a question like this here then where would you? It makes me laugh to think that we are going to censor information on pool over the Internet to protect the "cue builders"

If the cue maker provides enough value then he shouldn't be worried with publishing labor rates.

To think that people are equating the knowledge of a doctor to a cue builder is kinda crazy.

A better analogy would be to take all pieces of a car to a mechanic for assembly. He would quote you a labor rate and do his best to estimate the hours. You would then be able to make an educated decision. If you brought work to a top mechanic that he didn't want to do then he would just say no. Why should this be any different?
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Can't you read?

There was more than adequate explanation by the people in charge as to
why the newer rules were enacted. It is, after al THEIR forum, not "ours",
and it's not a democracy.

If you want this kind of discussion, go back to RSB.

Dale(who is missing the good old days just about now)
 
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