Looking for Tim Scruggs Guru

[Shooter08]

This is one of my favorite cues of all time and thisisamesmister said dacron was installed and it was Rays preferred wrap. I believe a friend of Rays used to list here and I pm'd him that I would gladly give Ray as much as he would like for any cues he wanted to wrap or have built. Shooter08

Ray Martin's Balabushka

Ray Martin's personal Balabushka. George made this masterpiece for Ray circa 1970. Interesting inlay pattern in butt sleeve, look like "angel's wings". Imagine how many 100+ ball runs this cue is responsible for.

forums.azbilliards.com

 

[shooter_Hans]

Cortland was just one brand of linen, of several. With Cortland, it was fishing line, but cuemakers took to it. When Dacron became more popular with fisherman, the market died out for Cortland as there wasn't enough business in cuemaking for them to keep making linen. Fast forward to something like the 1980s, Blue Mountain came into being, and I believe it's fair to say most of their business catered to cuemakers, as fishermen had gone to Dacron. Believe they were based in North Carolina, and sadly the factory burned down. There was also a brand called Penn, that the late Bill Stroud claimed to have had a hand in the development. The lucky cuemakers were the ones that had a good stock of Cortland and Blue Mountain. The current stuff that comes from China, I'm not even sure what the factory is or where it's located. There may be other makers for all I know, but the best is usually regarded as Cortland, Blue Mountain, and Penn.

Interesting.

I was wondering why the old cues were mostly white/green spec and felt silkier than their counterpart wraps. The modern stuff seem thicker like it was made to catch a large mouth bass. LOL

 

[WildWing]

Interesting.

I was wondering why the old cues were mostly white/green spec and felt silkier than their counterpart wraps. The modern stuff seem thicker like it was made to catch a large mouth bass. LOL

@classiccues

Well, since a good deal of this thread has been about traditional linen, some on my Scruggs cues, I thought I'd relay a bit. The old Cortland was used by George Balabushka, Gus Szamboti, and various others, when they could get their hands on it. Cortland was located in New York state, and apparently had the process down very well. Their linen was mostly done with white with green strand, though there were some variations, depending on salt water or fresh water. Their linen was so smooth, finished so well, that most cue aficionados consider it the best, though Blue Mountain and Penn were outstanding as well. Blue Mountain went on to do other colors.

I thought I'd include Joe Van Buren in this as well (classiccues) because I think there's nobody who has handled more collectible cues than Joe. I did a historical cue thread, and Joe contributed a lot. I believe Joe did an experiment with Hurlbert Linen company to try to duplicate the Cortland formula. As I recall, and I saw some pictures, they made a very good attempt, but couldn't quite get the same formula as Cortland, though it looked like very good linen.

All the best for good linen,
WW

 

[Bavafongoul]

The thing that distinguished Cortland linen was the hand examination of the braiding of the line.
It was machine spun but then it passed through the hands of a machine operator that was feeling
the spun line as it passed through their fingers detecting irregularities, knots, twists or frayed flax.

When they found any, the operator would stop the line and cut (remove) the damage and splice
the line together restarting the braiding machinery. Flax strands mostly caused any irregularities.

Cortland was known & praised for having the most uniform diameter fishing line. George Balabushka
favored Cortland Linen #9 and it’s my all time favorite wrap. I have it in my 40 year old Runde Schon cue
and the majority of my pool cues. The linen wraps today are crap. I’d rather use a cork or leather wrap.