looking
- Thread starter Ali88
- Start date
best tools
I have a wood lathe, but only use it to sand shafts. To replace tips in a professional way you need some kind of lathe more made to do metal work. You must run the shaft through the headstock and a collet/chuck to hold it. Then you can trim the tip, clean up the ferrule, shape the tip, burnish it etc. There are some micro lathes that may work if they have at least a 3/4 inch spindle hole and a self centering chuck. Look at cuesmith.com, Taig, sherline, and Unique brands. I bought a used Southbend metal lathe for doing my work on cues as well as some custom metal projects. You may be able to find a used one from before WWII for a couple hundred bucks! Or harbor freight has a new one that looks good, pretty cheap, just make sure the spindle hole can take at least the tip side of a shaft through it and have it hang out a little! You can make plastic collets to protect the wood from denting by the chuck by making them with your new lathe...Good luck.
I have a wood lathe, but only use it to sand shafts. To replace tips in a professional way you need some kind of lathe more made to do metal work. You must run the shaft through the headstock and a collet/chuck to hold it. Then you can trim the tip, clean up the ferrule, shape the tip, burnish it etc. There are some micro lathes that may work if they have at least a 3/4 inch spindle hole and a self centering chuck. Look at cuesmith.com, Taig, sherline, and Unique brands. I bought a used Southbend metal lathe for doing my work on cues as well as some custom metal projects. You may be able to find a used one from before WWII for a couple hundred bucks! Or harbor freight has a new one that looks good, pretty cheap, just make sure the spindle hole can take at least the tip side of a shaft through it and have it hang out a little! You can make plastic collets to protect the wood from denting by the chuck by making them with your new lathe...Good luck.
Price Range
What is your price range? Just for looking and comparison you could start with the lathes on the following link. Then decide if you ever would want to build cues. If the answer is no, then the smaller of the two here and a cheap wood lathe could do the trick for tips and shaft polishing.
You could go the used lathe route to save money but be sure to check it out good and do your homework. As far as how to set it up would depend on what you get.
Whatever you get be prepared to spend more though setting up your chucks, tooling and collets etc. Also consider that eventually you may get the cue building bug, in that case you may wish you had spent a little more and gotten yourself a cue lathe to start with.
Good luck.
Tom
http://www.lathemaster.com/LATHEPRODUCTS.htm
Ali88 said:
What is your price range? Just for looking and comparison you could start with the lathes on the following link. Then decide if you ever would want to build cues. If the answer is no, then the smaller of the two here and a cheap wood lathe could do the trick for tips and shaft polishing.
You could go the used lathe route to save money but be sure to check it out good and do your homework. As far as how to set it up would depend on what you get.
Whatever you get be prepared to spend more though setting up your chucks, tooling and collets etc. Also consider that eventually you may get the cue building bug, in that case you may wish you had spent a little more and gotten yourself a cue lathe to start with.
Good luck.
Tom
http://www.lathemaster.com/LATHEPRODUCTS.htm