Article from the Green Bay Press Gazette dated December 10, 2006.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com...ID=/20061210/GPG03/612100584/1247/GPGbusiness
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Pool-hall earnings turn into pool-cue business
Passion is 'to keep making the absolute best product that we can'
By Terry Anderson - Posted December 10, 2006
tanderso@greenbaypressgazette.com
HOWARD — From the winnings of a pool hall wager, Jerry Pechauer and his son Joe have created an internationally recognized business.
Back in 1963, Pechauer, an apprentice mechanic for International Harvester Co., was playing pool with a friend for a quarter a ball. When the evening ended the friend owed Pechauer $9.75, and not having the cash on hand he offered Pechauer a damaged Willie Hoppe pool cue as a substitute.
In restoring that pool cue, which he still owns, Pechauer discovered a lifelong passion that began as a hobby that father and son could share, and that grew into Custom Cues & Quality Billiards, 4140 Velp Ave., a manufacturer of pool cues and billiard tables.
The story of Custom Cues and Quality Billiards isn't that of a father who built a business, then passed it on to his son. Rather, it's a business that both have nurtured. From the very start, Joe took an interest in his father's hobby. At age 12, he made his very first pool cue.
"I'm a lot like my dad," Joe said. "I like to do stuff with my hands and I'm just as intrigued with the craft. This is our life and passion, to keep making the absolute best product that we can."
Joe recently succeeded his father as president of the company, and he is as dedicated to turning out the best possible pool cues.
"We start with a log and do every process in the middle," said Joe. "The only way to ensure the quality that we demand is to do it ourselves."
When the Pechauers say "everything," they really do mean everything. Of the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pieces of wood and inlay, stainless steel joints and brass inserts that can go into each pool cue, about the only thing that they don't manufacture are the rubber bumpers.
Annually, they will manufacture about 4,000 custom pool cues, most of which average between $200 and $400.
Some have a significantly higher price tag.
They are currently working on a special design for an upcoming book entitled the "Billiard Encyclopedia." For the publication, they are producing six or seven cues that will range in price from $3,000 to $10,000.
"We had someone fly in on his Lear jet, came up here to visit his girlfriend, and while he was here he bought three of our cues for $5,000 apiece," Jerry said.
The process of making a pool cue begins in the forests of northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, where Jerry personally selects the wood logs that will be cut and dried in-house and crafted into pool cues.
"Recently, I paid $1,300 for this awesome piece of birds-eye maple," Jerry said, referring to a piece that was about 10 feet long, 16 inches in diameter.
"It was white and stress free. It's going to make some beautiful cues," he said.
Out of that log they might be able to harvest 50 to 100 pieces that will go into pool cues.
"When you buy a log, the tough thing is that you can't see into it," Joe said. "It really takes a trained eye."
The Birdseye is a defect in the wood that gives the appearance some character, he explained.
The logs are cut into boards at their own sawmill, then dried in a special vacuum kiln that preserves the whiteness of the wood and eliminates warping.
In their factory, the Pechauer's have added special equipment that allows for a continuous humidity level of 40 percent, ensuring the quality of the wood as it is patiently sculpted into a pool cue.
Patience is clearly an ingredient in their manufacturing process. After each cut they let the wood sit for a while so that any stress can work itself out of the wood. It will take about four to six weeks to manufacture a completed pool cue.
"The lowest-priced cues that we make are really about quality and function. The upper-priced cues are really about art," Joe said.
With a clear sense of artistic pride, he showed four enormous elephant tusks he recently purchased at an estate auction in Texas. For more than a decade the worldwide import of elephant ivory has been banned, so being able to legally obtain the ivory will allow them to continue to offer ivory inlays in some of their high-end cues.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com...ID=/20061210/GPG03/612100584/1247/GPGbusiness
------------------------------------------------------------------
Pool-hall earnings turn into pool-cue business
Passion is 'to keep making the absolute best product that we can'
By Terry Anderson - Posted December 10, 2006
tanderso@greenbaypressgazette.com
HOWARD — From the winnings of a pool hall wager, Jerry Pechauer and his son Joe have created an internationally recognized business.
Back in 1963, Pechauer, an apprentice mechanic for International Harvester Co., was playing pool with a friend for a quarter a ball. When the evening ended the friend owed Pechauer $9.75, and not having the cash on hand he offered Pechauer a damaged Willie Hoppe pool cue as a substitute.
In restoring that pool cue, which he still owns, Pechauer discovered a lifelong passion that began as a hobby that father and son could share, and that grew into Custom Cues & Quality Billiards, 4140 Velp Ave., a manufacturer of pool cues and billiard tables.
The story of Custom Cues and Quality Billiards isn't that of a father who built a business, then passed it on to his son. Rather, it's a business that both have nurtured. From the very start, Joe took an interest in his father's hobby. At age 12, he made his very first pool cue.
"I'm a lot like my dad," Joe said. "I like to do stuff with my hands and I'm just as intrigued with the craft. This is our life and passion, to keep making the absolute best product that we can."
Joe recently succeeded his father as president of the company, and he is as dedicated to turning out the best possible pool cues.
"We start with a log and do every process in the middle," said Joe. "The only way to ensure the quality that we demand is to do it ourselves."
When the Pechauers say "everything," they really do mean everything. Of the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pieces of wood and inlay, stainless steel joints and brass inserts that can go into each pool cue, about the only thing that they don't manufacture are the rubber bumpers.
Annually, they will manufacture about 4,000 custom pool cues, most of which average between $200 and $400.
Some have a significantly higher price tag.
They are currently working on a special design for an upcoming book entitled the "Billiard Encyclopedia." For the publication, they are producing six or seven cues that will range in price from $3,000 to $10,000.
"We had someone fly in on his Lear jet, came up here to visit his girlfriend, and while he was here he bought three of our cues for $5,000 apiece," Jerry said.
The process of making a pool cue begins in the forests of northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, where Jerry personally selects the wood logs that will be cut and dried in-house and crafted into pool cues.
"Recently, I paid $1,300 for this awesome piece of birds-eye maple," Jerry said, referring to a piece that was about 10 feet long, 16 inches in diameter.
"It was white and stress free. It's going to make some beautiful cues," he said.
Out of that log they might be able to harvest 50 to 100 pieces that will go into pool cues.
"When you buy a log, the tough thing is that you can't see into it," Joe said. "It really takes a trained eye."
The Birdseye is a defect in the wood that gives the appearance some character, he explained.
The logs are cut into boards at their own sawmill, then dried in a special vacuum kiln that preserves the whiteness of the wood and eliminates warping.
In their factory, the Pechauer's have added special equipment that allows for a continuous humidity level of 40 percent, ensuring the quality of the wood as it is patiently sculpted into a pool cue.
Patience is clearly an ingredient in their manufacturing process. After each cut they let the wood sit for a while so that any stress can work itself out of the wood. It will take about four to six weeks to manufacture a completed pool cue.
"The lowest-priced cues that we make are really about quality and function. The upper-priced cues are really about art," Joe said.
With a clear sense of artistic pride, he showed four enormous elephant tusks he recently purchased at an estate auction in Texas. For more than a decade the worldwide import of elephant ivory has been banned, so being able to legally obtain the ivory will allow them to continue to offer ivory inlays in some of their high-end cues.
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