This whole thread makes me sad. It shows how entirely dependent on tools some people have become, and how brainwashed they've become by ad men.
What is a cue? It's a wooden stick with a piece of leather stuck to it! And here people are saying that you need 100 000 dollars worth of machines to make such an implement! CNC for a wooden stick? GTFO!
LOL, wtf is wrong with people? My friend has a Parris cue. That cue hits so sweet, it's a thing of beauty really. I really am not a cue fanatic, but that cue instantly added more points to my snooker game. If I were to take snooker seriously, there would be no way around buying one or at least a cue of similar quality. Only the joint is machine fitted, and you don't actually need a joint. Most snooker cues cost more without a joint because you need a longer, perfect piece of wood and the whole thing hits better.
I know of nothing so stupid as a person who obesssively rolls his cue and using a magnifying glass to look at inlays etc...Especially when that person later hits balls into the rails like he's playing carom instead of pool! Pool cues don't have to be perfectly round, they don't even have to be perfectly straight. I had a snooker cue that was bent to an extent that most of you would laugh at, but that cue put balls in the pockets, better than most straight cues of cheaper manufacture. Even so, you can make a cue so straight by hand that only obsessive rolling will detect any roll whatsoever. And it will have as nice materials as you put in and will have good glue, applied correctly if you know what you are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_RJUcyvr_s
This guy makes a really nice cue almost entirely by hand, and it could be done completely by hand if desired. It just needed a bit more fine work to be perfect. I mean, there are some problems with it, but someone more knowlegable about cues could fix them and he doesn't need more tools to do so. And you know what? If you have the skill, and the patience, and especially select your materials well, you could get a great cue this way. Most cheap cues, and especially snooker cues are made with such poor quality wood and workmanship that they play extremely poorly. Of course they are machine made, but they cannot be hand tuned in any way, and the glues are often inferior and poorly applied. Some are not even properly spliced but just flat pieces doweled together! Look out if the cue has a "metal" ribbon going around it. That hides the flat doweled joint! Those "Ronnie O'Sullivan" cues have them and they are god awful. If you find a nice piece of ash you could make something 3 times better than any such cheap cue. . Those crappy snooker cues are made en masse by CNC machines, by you peoples logic they should easily outclass a Parris cue, but guess what? They dont!