Question about hand-making cues

whammo57 said:
I can send out my Christmas cards and seal the envelopes with sealing wax......... but that is a little labor intense and old fashion..... but can be appreciated by some................... but instead, I lick the envelope flap, stick it and mail it.............

Don't try to live in the stone age................. get a lathe made for cue building.


Kim
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Why skateboard when you can ride a Segway?

Why sculpt an image from clay when you can design and print it on a 3d printer,?sculpting is so stone age compared to 3d printing.

Why use a classic film camera instead of digital?

At the end of the day I am just having fun, not trying to be the best cue maker of all time, I liked carving wood before this and find it relaxing, I probably will buy a decent lathe down the line, just can't justify the expense for a part time Hobby as of right now.
 
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JoeyInCali said:
Yeah, it tired my arm. lol
My late mentor loved 21 oz / 60" cues.
And he only played on bar boxes. He was 6'5" .

Over 21 just do not make sense to me unless you really like slipping that cue.
Even then, 21 oz is plenty.
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3oz difference makes your arm tired?

DoULift.jpg


I am kidding of course, my roommate said since I converted to a snooker style stance that he thought I would be better off with a lighter cue as well.

Am not totally hard headed so I will try a lighter cue for awhile before getting one made.
 
Snooker Theory said:
Hi, I enjoy trying to make cues in my spare time, yet to produce anything decent, they usually go right in the rubbish after I finish . My equipment basically matches my skill level.

I wondered if anyone could point in me in the direction of U.S. cuemakers who do most of their building by hand as opposed to most of the work done with lathes and cnc machines.

Maybe some names of forum posters, or good books/videos to buy on the subject?

I know a lot of snooker cues are made mostly by hand(joints done with lathe of course), couple examples below.

*EDIT* Apparently the two videos I initially picked were bad examples after some input I was lucky enough to receive from a couple respected members.
I think this video is maybe a better representation of what I am trying to accomplish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5CHxUmXT3U&feature=youtu.be&t=3m5s

*EDIT*
Here are the two videos I first referenced, which were not the best example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgF6kIxY0S0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZVui2C4zg

Thank you for any guidance
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If you really want , you can make a cue with a hand plane and some chisels, drills and a tap and a saw. Interestingly, with a lot of care, you can get the pin centred quite well with home made wooden fixtures as well. Yes it will take considerably longer to make than if you had a lathe etc, but you did ask about making things by hand. People with the skills required are also really good at making intricate wood puzzles as well.
Neil
 
It appears you have all the info you need between the three DVDs to build cues that way. ("By Hand") What the guy made in the third video was a crude lathe using a hand drill as his lathe motor. I noticed he said that he used to smooth it on out with planes instead of spinning. My question is why did he change? I think the simple answer is that because it made the job easier and produced better results. That is the same reason I quit building cues on a simple wood lathe almost 30 years ago and came up with something better.
 
On the topic of how large of an investment a lathe can be for cue building you are one hundred percent right but two things you may not have thought of and actually go hand in hand.

Owning a lathe that is setup to do cue work, be it a dedicated machine like the Hightower Cue Smith series or the Mid America series of lathes, Or something like a Jet Gun / engine lathe allows you to work more efficiently, saves labor time and stress on your body and it opens the door to do other projects some of which will be related to cue work some of which wont be. For example, I had a small part break on my Harley the dealer did not have the part in stock and also they wanted an exorbitant amount of money for it. I was able to make the part in about an hour on my cue lathe using a piece of scrap aluminum I had lying around.

More importantly however, The lathe is not just limited to building a cue. You can use it to offset the cost or in my case completely pay for itself by doing repairs to friends, and fellow players cues. If your name gets out there as a person that does high quality repairs at fair or affordable prices you will end up with more repair work than you might know what to do with. The more repairs you do the better you will get, the more efficient you will get at doing them and those will transfer over to being a better cue builder.

When I service a pool table at a commercial location my cue lathe goes with me and I service the cues that are on location as well. I clean them, check the tips and ferrules, if either need replacing I do that, trim mushrooms, reshape tips. This serves a few purposes for me. It saves me from having to come back out and recloth the table in two weeks because someone tried to shoot with a cue that didnt have a tip and tore the cloth. It makes the owner of the establishment feel like they are getting more value for their money and also makes them feel that I am trying to protect their investment as much as they want to protect it themselves. At the start it gave me invaluable experience doing repairs and cleaning with out the risk of damaging my cues or an expensive customers cue. And most importantly it allows my name to get out to others as while I am there doing the table or cue work and other patrons come in they see that I have to the equipment and knowledge to do both and often I end up handing out 2 to 5 cards because either the patron themselves is interested in having some work done or they know someone who is. On more than one occasion I have gotten a call from someone saying "My buddy gave me your card, he saw you working at XXXXXXXX establishment and says you do good work, can you change a tip for me and clean my cue"

Just some food for thought
 
I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who took time to offer a reply or drop me a private message with advice.

It is sincerely appreciated!
 
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