Hi Larry
I will answer this against my better judgement and because I know someone is going to say something stupid in hopes of starting another argument. The track record here seems to speak for itself when I read this section, But I'm gonna try to be professional and honest about my following statement:
There are a lot of guys doing great finish work, no doubt about it, some are new Cue makers and some are not so new. But putting a finish on a new cue is not even close to what situations someone could run into in refinishing another makers cue. I know I had two cues last winter that I was totally depressed about because I didn't have the answers I needed. I went back to square 1 and researched finishes, temperatures and humity til I was confident in what I was doing again. Shit happens as they say and I could probably write a small book at this point in my career to what could happen. I referred Cory because I'm a huge fan of his cues and more so of his finish but his experience is the closer for me, Today, anyone can be a cue maker but they cannot be a Cue Mechanic without years of experience and every once in a while we all fall on our butts because the riddles are not all the same.