cutter said:
Please take these comments as constructive and not judgmental. First, looks like you did a great job on the cue, fit and finish look first rate. Really like the way the rosewood jumps out. Not sure if I would have done the chain rings on an old style cue, but looks like you did a good job on them. It's easy to get involved with the technical difficultly of doing something and overlook the total package. Biggest thing that jumps out at me is the different color tone of the old maple vs. the new maple. Very hard to make it look the same, that's why a lot of people don't try doing it.
Overall I'd call it a very nice cue. I tried to be as picky as possible so please take my comments in the spirit they were given.
Thanks for the input Steve, I am a totally self taught, in all respects. I am just a retired Army soldier, who owns a pool room, retail store, and a billiard Pro-shop, where I started doing cue repairs around three years ago, and that was the first step to achieve my true passion custom Cue building.
Since that time I have started to make conversion cues for my customers. Currently I have so much work, in my one man shop that I am challenged to keep up sometimes. I have wanted to make cues to the specifications that I like. My Conversion cues have thinner butts and are normally lighter in weight 17.5 to 19 oz than what others are making.
My conversion cues are made to suit each individual customer, according to their Height, arm length, and stroke.
I am grateful for the insight, and you are completely right, it is very hard to match the colors of very old wood. But in this cue, I really did not want to do that, because it would have taken away from figure of the curly maple in the cues butt.
As for the rings, you are also right, however, I love this style of design and over all it came out to suit my taste.
Another thing Steve, I do not follow traditional styling. I take what I like from many styles and combine them. When, I begin to build a Conversion cue, I just let design come from within as the cue is being built. This way my conversions are all different and unique. I like cues with multiple colored veneering, different combinations of woods, and I like to use wood with lots of figure, and I especially like Spliced Forearms with Veneers.
Currently I am tooling up to make some Full Spliced 2 and 4 point butts with multiple colored veneers. As I get a little further along with the project I will start posting photo's of my sucess and failures.
Thanks again for your input, and have a great day!!!!!!!!
