Looking for someone for a conversion.

Icon of Sin

Icon of Sin

I can't fold, I need gold. I re-up and reload...
Silver Member
I have never been interested in conversion cues until now. I recently "found" a Willie Hoppe 1 piece Brunswick that was being used as a house cue at a hotel I was staying at. They obviously didn't know what they had.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here that can do conversions can show me a few pics of some of these Hoppe Titlist conversions that have been done and let me know what all is available in the conversion as I have no idea how this works.

Any help or pointing in the right direction is appreciated.

-Heath
 
sorry for the newb question but can someone enlighten me to the appeal of a conversion cue? is it due to the fact that it's a full splice or is it because the cue/wood has been aged a long long time?

i know it's sort of an open ended question but i often see lots of conversions for sale and commanding a fairly high price. i guess i'm wondering why.
 
Chris Byrne said:
Is the hotel missing a house cue now? LOL
Click to expand...

About 7 or 8 years ago I had an old gent in his eighties come into my shop with few house cues and a couple of old two piece cues needing tip replacement. He said that he not long before had a house built in one of the better neighborhoods of Cincinnati. The architect designed the house with the furnace in the middle of the basement for the most economical distribution of heat and air. At any rate all he could now fit was a bar box and the cues were all for his grand kids to play with. One of these cues was a two piece with an ivory ferrule and a thin shaft of around 11.5mm. The ferrule was the same size as the shaft but then belled out to 13mm. He said that when he started at P&G in the late thirties that his boss was a very good pool player and had given the cue to him. He told me he would be back to get a couple of other cues tipped but I never saw him again. After he left I looked the cue up and of coarse it was an old Brunswick Bell cue worth in the neighborhood of 4,000.00. I probably could have traded him some new house cues for it as that was all he was using it for. Another oddity that he told me is that in 1943 he bought Brunswick's old house here in Cinti. The house is in Walnut Hills, a part of town where at one time all the affluent lived and had many mansions. He told me that the pool room and ball room were one in the same. He said there were to alcoves, one on each side of the room, with sliding doors. There was supposedly two tables, one pocket and the other billiard, on wheels and when the room was to be used as a ball room the tables were rolled into these alcoves and out of site.

Just a little bit of nostalgia that this string reminded me of.

Dick
 
Icon of Sin said:
I have never been interested in conversion cues until now. I recently "found" a Willie Hoppe 1 piece Brunswick that was being used as a house cue at a hotel I was staying at. They obviously didn't know what they had.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here that can do conversions can show me a few pics of some of these Hoppe Titlist conversions that have been done and let me know what all is available in the conversion as I have no idea how this works.

Any help or pointing in the right direction is appreciated.

-Heath
Click to expand...

Heath, I've had a few converted by different cue makers.

Not everyone will do it so find a cue maker willing to to the converison. Also, initially, I thought "how hard can this be?". Well, it turned out as local cue maker say "it's pain in the ass".

I think there are a lot of variables including the conditon of the Titlist blank, joint diameter and etc. that can complicate the conversion. One cuemaker spent a lot of time getting the loose veneers re-glued. He said glue was going in one side and dripping out another. He also found a lot of cracks to stabilize.

As one cue maker said, it's a lot easier to start with a blank square piece of wood then trying to work around a Titlist.

Also the work is not cheap ... depending on how much you spent on the Titlist, the conversion can run you over $500 easily.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top