repair lathe

I don't have the money to pay Chris outright for his lathes, but I would never put one together and then sell his ideas. I don't care that it's made of different materials, it's a shame that people are willing to do this. I can guarantee the gentleman selling it won't give anywhere near the service that Mr. Hightower does for all of his customers. I just think it's disrespectful. And that's just my opinion.
 
the lathe on eBay has a small hole thru the headstock........appears to be a Taig with extended bed........good for repairs and nothing else.

But, I've been wrong before.......j
 
shakes said:
I don't have the money to pay Chris outright for his lathes, but I would never put one together and then sell his ideas. I don't care that it's made of different materials, it's a shame that people are willing to do this. I can guarantee the gentleman selling it won't give anywhere near the service that Mr. Hightower does for all of his customers. I just think it's disrespectful. And that's just my opinion.
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While I'm not trying to start any arguments, I don't see how this is stealing Chris's ideas.

The concept of a repair lathe is nothing new. I can buy 3rd party lathes, mini lathes, mills, cnc machines to repair or build a cue once modified/adapted. If the price is right and if you are willing to suffer the growing pains with putting together a Frankenstein machine so be it.

I have used the drill method to spin shafts. Now I'm looking for a better way to accomplish the task that isn't too expensive while offering future upgrade/expansion opportunities.

While I would love to purchase a Deluxe right now and not have any problems/growing pains. The price for this with the features meets my needs at the moment. If I later decide to pursue cue building as a pastime I will more than likely purchase a Deluxe, Porper, or Unique lathe as a turnkey solution. As they say you can't have too much equipment.

Will I regret my decision I don't know... I agree the support from Chris is outstanding and whomever wins this REPAIR lathe probably won't recieve that level of support. But I'm jumping the gun, I haven't even won the auction yet.
 
its all about accuracy how on center is it other then that great little machine for up keep on any cue. Once its on center and dialed in you should be able to do ferulle's with ease order some collets and book\ videos From Chris Hightower.

I would buy it but i already have 6 lathes,a mill and 2 pantogrghsand im still learning and buying equipment.
 
As it stands I have already ordered Chris's book and both DVDs. They have been shipped. Can't wait.....
 
Jack Flanagan said:
the lathe on eBay has a small hole thru the headstock........appears to be a Taig with extended bed........good for repairs and nothing else.

But, I've been wrong before.......j
Click to expand...

Did I miss something?

"good for repairs and nothing else"
seems to imply a bit of negative feeling.

The item is listed as a repair lathe,
and the bug is pimping it as a repair lathe.

Sounds ok to me

Dale
 
mooseman said:
As it stands I have already ordered Chris's book and both DVDs. They have been shipped. Can't wait.....
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I should probably quit doing it, and make things harder on my competitors to copy my machines, but I will probably sell you the hundreds of dollars worth of stuff you will want to add to it once you get it. If I quit selling the upgrades maybe people wouldn't want to buy the knock offs in the first place.
Chris
www.cuesmith.com
www.internationalcuemakers.com
 
replacement parts

when something breaks on this homemade lathe, where are you going to get parts?
 
cueman said:
I should probably quit doing it, and make things harder on my competitors to copy my machines, but I will probably sell you the hundreds of dollars worth of stuff you will want to add to it once you get it. If I quit selling the upgrades maybe people wouldn't want to buy the knock offs in the first place.
Chris
www.cuesmith.com
www.internationalcuemakers.com
Click to expand...

Raise the prices on those parts when you are not selling them as replacements or upgrades to people who bought one of your lathes. That doesn't punish them as much as reward the people who bought from you originally.

just a thought...
Kelly
 
tsp&b said:
If all you want is tips and ferrules. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MESE:IT&viewitem=&item=180083573193&rd=1&rd=1
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That's all I'd want and it's been tempting me for a couple weeks. Problem is it's not much better than my "crutch-tip-on-drill-tied-to-a-1x12 w/a bungee-cord" contraption. All I want so far is to spin a shaft and this crude piece-o-crap does that. :o

But I'd sure like to upgrade to one of Chris's machines. Neat stuff! .... and I like neat stuff, especially PRECISION neat stuff. It's the wannabe hotrodder machineist in me. :D
 
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Well, you guys make me an offer on my Cue Companion ( stronger motor and foot pedal included ). :)
 
lathe

What do most people think of this as a repair lathe. At $200 it would be impossible to pass it up. Put another $400 into it and it would be one of the best on the market.
http://www.cartertools.com/catalog.html

I have been doing a lot of reserch on cue building equiptment. Even on this form if you go back to 2003, 2004 will will see how a lot of cuemakers exchanged ideas on how to build cue equiptment. If you look at some of the machines on the market long and hard enough you can lell where they got the idea. It like making pool sticks I suppose. Same idea just slightly difference appearence.
My question is this. Is this stealing Hightowers lathe or did Hightower get this idea from Taig. I dont know, but what difference does it make? The real broblem that I see is this. I think that this form is mostly made up of members who do this as a living. This is there bread and butter. This is how they survive. Now, hobbiest come a long and flood the market, begin making there own products and the professionals (well say) take a major it. So how do both sides get along. I think that in the next 10 years its only going to get harder for the professionals. I recently started working with aluminum and found out how easy aluminum is to work with. Im currently building a machine to tips and ferrules only using a slab mill blade and a 9"sanding disk. Much faster, more accurate and absolutely the best tool for doing bar cues. instead of a lathe turning, I just turn my cue.
 
mooseman said:
While I'm not trying to start any arguments, I don't see how this is stealing Chris's ideas.

The concept of a repair lathe is nothing new. I can buy 3rd party lathes, mini lathes, mills, cnc machines to repair or build a cue once modified/adapted. If the price is right and if you are willing to suffer the growing pains with putting together a Frankenstein machine so be it.

I have used the drill method to spin shafts. Now I'm looking for a better way to accomplish the task that isn't too expensive while offering future upgrade/expansion opportunities.

While I would love to purchase a Deluxe right now and not have any problems/growing pains. The price for this with the features meets my needs at the moment. If I later decide to pursue cue building as a pastime I will more than likely purchase a Deluxe, Porper, or Unique lathe as a turnkey solution. As they say you can't have too much equipment.

Will I regret my decision I don't know... I agree the support from Chris is outstanding and whomever wins this REPAIR lathe probably won't recieve that level of support. But I'm jumping the gun, I haven't even won the auction yet.
Click to expand...

Moose, I don't take any of your thoughts as attacks, so please don't feel like I was attacking you at all. As I mentioned, I don't have the money to buy Chris' lathes outright, and I went a similar fashion in purchasing parts piecemeal (sp?) and putting them together. And for people who don't have the money for a whole lathe I understand that completely. OR people who are trying to do their own thing and make something better for wannabe (such as me) cuemakers out there. But if you look at this lathe and the bed, other than the fact that he advertises it is made of steel, it's seemingly an exact duplicate of Chris' lathes.

Again, I have no problems with someone who is putting something together for themselves, wants to have a steel bed for added weight or rigidity, or whatever, but to make it and try and sell it as his own, or in his words:

"FINALLY, AN AFFORDABLE CUE LATHE FOR THE REST OF US"

"I built this based on one that I personally used in my own pool room, only this one is much better."

Any other industry and that's going to be an easy lawsuit. Again, this is my personal opinion, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy it, because I haven't walked in your shoes. I just don't understand how some people try to make money off of other people's ideas or stuff. I love this board because you can listen to other people's ideas, learn from it and apply it to help you, but don't pawn it off later on as your own. Give credit where it's due.


As always, just my opinion.
 
Kelly_Guy said:
Raise the prices on those parts when you are not selling them as replacements or upgrades to people who bought one of your lathes. That doesn't punish them as much as reward the people who bought from you originally.

just a thought...
Kelly
Click to expand...
What if I buy your used Deluxe (If you have one??) and realize that Im missing parts, or that I have broken something. Should I also suffer the same consequences. This is one way you start a new business relationship. Now, hopefuly I will be a return customer to this manufacture. Also, if he did raise the price, then one of two things would happen. A) the customer would probably realizes this and go through his friend who does have the origional manufacturer's item. or, B) the company would lose the sale all together. In my opinion, rasing the price is not the answer to a specialy challanged industry. AS most cue maker always say If you think you are going to make a living at this you are crazy. This being said, every sale counts, even if its minimum profit.
 
bubsbug said:
What if I buy your used Deluxe (If you have one??) and realize that Im missing parts, or that I have broken something. Should I also suffer the same consequences. This is one way you start a new business relationship. Now, hopefuly I will be a return customer to this manufacture. Also, if he did raise the price, then one of two things would happen. A) the customer would probably realizes this and go through his friend who does have the origional manufacturer's item. or, B) the company would lose the sale all together. In my opinion, rasing the price is not the answer to a specialy challanged industry. AS most cue maker always say If you think you are going to make a living at this you are crazy. This being said, every sale counts, even if its minimum profit.
Click to expand...

If you buy my used (hypothetical) deluxe, you tell Chris you bought my used deluxe and would like to use Chris to supply you with parts or upgrades if needed, and there is no problem. Chris can verify with me if he chooses. How did you confuse that with buying a knock off and then asking Chris to bail you out because it doesn't serve your needs?

If the service and parts was going to be there for someone buying a copied lathe, and they wouldn't have to go to Chris for parts and upgrades, we wouldn't be having the discussion.

My suggestion to CHRIS was in response to his mention of possibly not selling individual parts to those who are buying the knock offs. The fact is that this is the way Chris makes his living. Would you rather he stop doing that completely? or try and encourage people to go through him to begin with by a small change in pricing policy.

Kelly
 
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desi2960 said:
when something breaks on this homemade lathe, where are you going to get parts?
Click to expand...

If I understand correctly, these are standard taig parts. So there should be nothing proprietary. http://www.cartertools.com/catalog.html

How many folks actually believe this is a Hightower knockoff? Is the Unique Cue Companion or Shop Companion also a knockoff? They look similar and perform the same function but may not use the same parts. What makes this particular repair lathe a knockoff? Is it the full size bed and tooling???? The other repair lathe currently on EBay also uses Taig parts...so does that make it a knockoff?

The ADVANTAGES of purchasing a cueman lathe is the support and replacement parts/upgrades from Chris. If I purchase parts from Chris for a non-Hightower lathe they may or may not work as advertised and would not be supportable. By the same token how many folks using a Hightower or Porper lathes continue to buy all other parts/supplies from the original manufacturer? How many folks further modify the equipment to meet their changing needs?

So this comes back to economics, etc. While I would love to purchase a Deluxe or Porper they are out of my price range at this time in the event I don't pursue this. I can always buy a Deluxe later on and use this for another dedicated purpose.

FYI...I just found out I won the auction.
 
?????????????

This is a first. I've never seen anyone buy something off ebay an take any guff over it. I bought a hightower deluxe. Chris did not invent the lathe. He makes a serviceable product with reliable service. This is not a Hightower nor does it resemble one. There has been no crime commited here. It"s just a modified lathe to do cue repair an looks like a money maker to me. Good luck with your repair lathe Mooseman.
Pinocchio
 
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