And about all that care the cuemakers are putting into the wood ageing and selection process. Well yeah, true for a small fraction of the builders. But the others? I would love to see the buyers list from Schmelke. Or Muller's.
If your buying from someone who builds 12 cues a year, it's art. That's just fine. Nothing wrong with supporting the arts, nor investing in art either. But that has nothing to do with finding what ever is the "best" playing cue for you.
Bottom line is I'm still waiting for someone to admit that they paid $5,000 for a pretty cue that hits like
suck.
I'm going to expose some little known secrets that some custom cuemakers may not want you to know.
Wood selection? Yeah, harmonics, etc, grain.....complete BS. Most of the new cuemakers are coring their cues. So there goes that "selected based on grain and tonality" garbage. I have a Barnhart - cored with laminated maple. Keith Josey cores his cues with a one piece laminated core. So, if you bought one of his ebony cues because you "love the hit and tonal feel of ebony", that radial pin is firmly glued and seated into a laminated maple core. A lot of makers have started coring their woods due to using less stable woods. Burls like to move, so you use a gun drill, core out the wood, and stick maple into the middle. There goes that wonderful "wood selection" argument. How do you get consistency in cues? Assemble them the same way, independent of wood types. Coring makes wood more stable, and makes weights more manageable. It also eliminates a need for a screw at the A joint, which eliminates any connection issues, or buzzes and rattles. Schons are cored as well. Evan uses a special wood that is used in archery, as it makes his cues flex consistently.
Here's my stance on the custom cuemaker, and their wood aging process. Aging and drying wood isn't new. Some cuemaker didn't come up with the magic formula. The guys that have made furniture and other wooden products learned about it long before the cuemaking world. Anyone can pick up a book and learn about wood, humidity levels, etc. I find it a tad arrogant for a guy that's made cues in his basement for the past 6 years to think he has a leg up on a production facility like Mezz, which is owned by Helmstetter, that was set up by Richard Helmstetter. He studied forestry, and has probably forgotten more about wood than most aspiring cuemakers will learn. He set up production facilities for other cuemaking operations, teaching them how to properly select and treat wood. I've been inside the Joss plant. I've seen how much wood is in the shop. They probably throw out more wood in a year than a custom maker buys. "Well, I've been making cues for 7 years now, but I know more than those guys at Joss that have been making them for 40 years....because I put "custom" in the name of my cues". Pretty entertaining.
Dan Janes and Keith Josey are good friends. They exchange cuemaking ideas all the time. To think that one is doing something that the other can't, or vice versa is, again, a tad arrogant. They have their specific markets they cater to. However, some people have figured that more expensive means better. They're using watch and car analogies. Hate to tell you this, but there's no comparisons between comparing Toyota to Ferrari, and applying that same logic to a custom cuemaker vs a production maker. The cues are made from WOOD. Maple is maple. Cored is cored. A Triangle tip on a custom plays the same as a Triangle tip on a production cue. Where I think the production facility has the advantage is repeatability, and automation. With a custom cuemaker, you have one guy that does everything, Some people think that means a better cue. I don't necessarily believe that to be true. If I'm hung over the day I decided to do your ferrule, I may mess it up a little. I finish the cue, and look it over. Then send it out, because you've sent me 14 emails asking where the hell your cue is, and I just want the bombing to stop. You get the cue, and find my mistake. Now, at McDermott, let's say Bob, on the lathe, messes up the ferrule. He sends it over to the sanding guy. The sanding guy, who doesn't drink, sees the ferrule mistake. He brings it to Bob, and says "fix the ferrule", because all he does is look at shafts for sanding all day long. There are checks and balances in place that mistakes get caught. By having certain steps in place, they make a very consistent playing cue, with consistent quality controls, and have multiple steps to ensure the customer gets a satisfactory product.