Production cues quaility

measureman

measureman

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Today i went to my local Billiard store and bought a new case. While there i looked at some cues. The first thing i do is run my fingers over the joint and rings. I was amazed at how bad they were. Now i have a Lucasi and the joint and rings are not perfectly smooth but acceptable considering the price.
Now I'm not talking about one cue but all of them.McDermott Joss,Viking,Players and Lucasi. There were several of each brand and the rings not only were popping but there was glue coming out and they finished right over it. Now a couple had MOP inlays and they were not flush.If it had been one cue or just one brand i would say somebody had a bad day but this was about 20 cues from the above makers.Is this the state of low end production cues? These cues ranged from $70 up to $400.Even some of the shafts felt uneven and not tapered properly.It seems as if you buy one off the net sight unseen you are shooting craps.
But on an upbeat note the $58 case was made very good.
 
wow, that sucks. i recently bought a new mcdermott online and its perfect. surprised mcdermott would have this going on.
 
You're right Measure, I think it's a sign of the times.
If you really want to have some fun, put a thin paper napkin between your finger tips and then run them lightly over the joints, rings, and inlays. They'll jump out at you. :smile:
 
jdxprs said:
wow, that sucks. i recently bought a new mcdermott online and its perfect. surprised mcdermott would have this going on.
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Glad you got a good one. I was really surprised that it was every cue. Now to be fair some were just plain disgraceful and some were just bad. But bad enough that i would not buy one.
 
I have seen this from time to time, maybe not as bad as you explained it though. I think they get away with it because most people in the world dont know what to look for in a cue build. I know before I found AZ and got serious about pool I wouldnt have even noticed something I would now, and neither would about anyone in my APA league. I can pick up some of their cues and cringe, but if I never say anything they will never know any better, sadly enough.
 
I just got a brand new McDermott Dubliner a week ago (hoping all those 4 leaf clover inlays will bring some luck to my game) and there is nothing wrong with it. I dont know about the other brands but I know McDermott has some lower end cues. Could those be some of the ones you were looking at? Their professional line line runs $300 and up and are made in the USA. Every one I have picked up is pretty good quality for the price. I have not seen any with bad workmanship, although the selection at the local stores is not that huge.
 
I bought 2 OB1 shafts for 2 McDermotts and was told by AZ Marketplace ahead of time that there was a good chance the joints wouldn't line up too well. 1 shaft isn't even close. It's probably a 1/2 mm off to one side. The other is better aligned, but the butt is much larger in diameter. They both hit fine. I shoot better with the 'crooked' stick because it compensates for my non-repeatable stroke.:confused::rolleyes:
 
measureman said:
Today i went to my local Billiard store and bought a new case. While there i looked at some cues. The first thing i do is run my fingers over the joint and rings. I was amazed at how bad they were. Now i have a Lucasi and the joint and rings are not perfectly smooth but acceptable considering the price.
Now I'm not talking about one cue but all of them.McDermott Joss,Viking,Players and Lucasi. There were several of each brand and the rings not only were popping but there was glue coming out and they finished right over it. Now a couple had MOP inlays and they were not flush.If it had been one cue or just one brand i would say somebody had a bad day but this was about 20 cues from the above makers.Is this the state of low end production cues? These cues ranged from $70 up to $400.Even some of the shafts felt uneven and not tapered properly.It seems as if you buy one off the net sight unseen you are shooting craps.
But on an upbeat note the $58 case was made very good.
Click to expand...

What you are seeing is atmosphric conditions effecting the cues, in other words humidity or lack of it. wood moves sometimes it grows or shrinks-the joints dont there is your difference. Same for the inlays. I saw a inlay fall out of a $2500 cue here in Vegas years ago.

A lot of cues do that when they come to live in Vegas, the dry air here is brutal on cues-especially if they are made from green wood, meaning wood that hasnt been properly kiln dried or aged. I have never seen a problem with a 40 year old cue or a cue from a cue maker that only lets good wood out of his shop, with good aged wood there are few problems. Probem is some cue makers let things leave their shop that they shouldnt. Living here in Vegas I can see who is and isnt doing that because its so dry. And I'm not talking about McDermotts.
 
I have seen this a few times while visiting other dealers. One of the last procedures that McD does to a cue is polish the joint while the cue is assembled, which means a smooth transition between collar and shaft. This means that each shaft is unique to each butt.

What probably happened at the store in question, is that someone was playing mix and match with the shafts, trying to get one smaller, larger, smoother,etc.

I was set up at a tournament once and took a dinner break, leaving a friend in charge of the booth. I had 24 of the plain black banded cues with no design in the rings. Needless to say, a customer stopped by and liked one of the cues but not the shaft. He went down the line and tried each and every shaft just replacing each one haphazardly back in the display leaving me with quite a puzzle to solve.

I have seen the same thing in some stores and billiard supplies all over the country.
 
Along the lines of Fatboy's comments...

Since you said that all of the cues you looked at (from different makers and at different price points) had the same problems, I have to wonder how they were stored.

Even if the room that they're in now has favorable temperature and humidity, these cues may have been subjected to prolonged storage in extreme conditions.

My general sense is that quality standards in cue manufacture have, if anything, improved in recent years. I really can't think of any other explanation for what you saw.
 
zy112 said:
I have seen this from time to time, maybe not as bad as you explained it though. I think they get away with it because most people in the world dont know what to look for in a cue build. I know before I found AZ and got serious about pool I wouldnt have even noticed something I would now, and neither would about anyone in my APA league. I can pick up some of their cues and cringe, but if I never say anything they will never know any better, sadly enough.
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The low end cue market is aimed at the league players who go out to socialize and they view pool as just a reason to be there. Most of them (not all of them) really don't know or care a thing about a well made cue. I can count the number of people in my city who own nice custom cues on one hand and there are a lot of pool players where I live. To each his own.........

James
 
Now i got to thinking as to why all the cues were bad. This store i go to is a large Electronics store by the name of Ultimate Electronics here in Colorado. They have multiple locations and quite a large billiards department.Maybe they gathered up the worst cues of all their stores and put them in one location so that the uninformed would think that this is just the norm for pool cues and would buy them. I bought my Lucasi from them and it was not perfect but very good for a cheap production cue. They had two of the cues that i bought and one had great Cocobolo wood and the other not so good. The one with the not so good wood had the better shaft so i switched shafts and the joint lined up good and rolled straight.
So because i switched shafts and had the cheap leather wrap replaced with linen would this make my cue a semi custom? Or would this be a reach?:smile:
 
measureman said:
Today i went to my local Billiard store and bought a new case. While there i looked at some cues. The first thing i do is run my fingers over the joint and rings. I was amazed at how bad they were. Now i have a Lucasi and the joint and rings are not perfectly smooth but acceptable considering the price.
Now I'm not talking about one cue but all of them.McDermott Joss,Viking,Players and Lucasi. There were several of each brand and the rings not only were popping but there was glue coming out and they finished right over it. Now a couple had MOP inlays and they were not flush.If it had been one cue or just one brand i would say somebody had a bad day but this was about 20 cues from the above makers.Is this the state of low end production cues? These cues ranged from $70 up to $400.Even some of the shafts felt uneven and not tapered properly.It seems as if you buy one off the net sight unseen you are shooting craps.
But on an upbeat note the $58 case was made very good.
Click to expand...

This that you post about is not specific to production cues. While at the Galveston World Classic, I saw MANY custom cues by well-known cuemakers that had some of the problems you mentioned (no, I will not name them as I spent time in a lot of vendor booths and am confused now as to which ones they were). Mostly, I saw some of the poorest leather/exotic skin wrap jobs I have EVER seen, be it custom or production cues. Unsightly seams, edges of the wraps near the rings starting to peel, wraps taller than the face of the butt, etc. Sad thing is, most of these cues were in the $1,000-$2,000 plus price range. Very sad indeed.

Maniac
 
Maniac said:
This that you post about is not specific to production cues. While at the Galveston World Classic, I saw MANY custom cues by well-known cuemakers that had some of the problems you mentioned (no, I will not name them as I spent time in a lot of vendor booths and am confused now as to which ones they were). Mostly, I saw some of the poorest leather/exotic skin wrap jobs I have EVER seen, be it custom or production cues. Unsightly seams, edges of the wraps near the rings starting to peel, wraps taller than the face of the butt, etc. Sad thing is, most of these cues were in the $1,000-$2,000 plus price range. Very sad indeed.

Maniac
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Talking about higher end cues i had the chance to hit some balls recently with a Schon and a Paul Mottey and while the workmanship was better then my Lucasi i felt the hit and balance was not better.
 
Pimp my cue

measureman said:
They had two of the cues that i bought and one had great Cocobolo wood and the other not so good. The one with the not so good wood had the better shaft so i switched shafts and the joint lined up good and rolled straight.
So because i switched shafts and had the cheap leather wrap replaced with linen would this make my cue a semi custom? Or would this be a reach?:smile:
Click to expand...

That's reaching. Ever see that show "Pimp my ride?" :rolleyes:

You simply chose the better of two production shafts for a cue and changed the wrap. Shafts and wraps are often replaced over the lifespan of a cue, and, IMO, fall under cue maintenance.

You've got a modified cue. If you like it, be proud of it. No need to give it a fancy name.

Best,

~Beau
 
To me it sounds like either thier not stored right or they are seconds from the cue companies or some of thier returns. Johnnyt
 
I would have no problem believing this could be humidity related. While Denver is not as dry Las Vegas it does have a slightly larger AM/PM swing in humidity difference. Any wood product, especially cues with different wood species and materials, that were not kiln dried/seasoned and then crafted would show separation at low humidity locations, the opposite would also apply, and even worse, locations that have large humidity swings. Maybe this would be a reason to deal with a local cue maker?
 
measureman said:
Today i went to my local Billiard store and bought a new case. While there i looked at some cues. The first thing i do is run my fingers over the joint and rings. I was amazed at how bad they were. Now i have a Lucasi and the joint and rings are not perfectly smooth but acceptable considering the price.
Now I'm not talking about one cue but all of them.McDermott Joss,Viking,Players and Lucasi. There were several of each brand and the rings not only were popping but there was glue coming out and they finished right over it. Now a couple had MOP inlays and they were not flush.If it had been one cue or just one brand i would say somebody had a bad day but this was about 20 cues from the above makers.Is this the state of low end production cues? These cues ranged from $70 up to $400.Even some of the shafts felt uneven and not tapered properly.It seems as if you buy one off the net sight unseen you are shooting craps.
But on an upbeat note the $58 case was made very good.
Click to expand...



I am not calling you a liar, but I have not seen the same problems you out lined except with the Import Cues. I own a retail store, I build Custom cues and repair cues part time for my customers. I have never seen this problem occur with McDermott cues, in fact I have contacted them personally and tried to find out how they get away with using metal inlays and rings that don't expand unless the cue is abused.

Now I also sell Players, Lucasi, Dave Pearson, and many other import cues and yes what you described are very very common problems for these cues, that is why I have never understood why some one would spend more than $250 on an import.

JIMO
 
Anyone who wants to stop by the Fury/Sterling booth at the Super Billiards Expo is more than welcome to see the quality of our production cues and compare them point for point against any other cue out there.

I fully believe that our cues can stand up favorably in the price/value ratio against any other cues.

We will be here at the SuperBilliards Expo March 18-21st.

SBE-Booth-Map.jpg
 
Seems like the problem is that you have an electronics store selling billiard equipment. You really have no way of knowing what those cues have been through. I have been all over the nation and the world and see cues displayed under horrid conditions and seen them displayed in proper conditions.

At the end of the day these are wooden instruments and as such they are subject to the laws of physics. Cue makers do all that they can to build resistance against the elements into their cues, some more than others certainly, but there is only so much that can be done.

I tend to think that if all the cues on display had such problems then the issue lies with how the cues have been kept and not with the individual manufacturers.
 
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