Sealing, Final finish and burnishing

nfuids

nfuids

eh?
Silver Member
Hi there!

I'm starting to actively trying to improve my cue repair/maintenance skills.. I've been reading a hell of a lot lately and wanted to learn more about the different sealer.. It is my understanding there is pretty various type
- Lacquer
- Polyurethane
- Vernish
- Shellac

Can anyone tell me in which category regular "cue sealer" falls in? I'm thinking Lacquer, but have no idea. I've been suggested to use http://www.rockler.com/zinsser-bullseye-sealcoat (was looking for something near by, didn't want to wait for shipping, thought I ordered some from cueman).

I also spoke to a cue repar guy around here and he tells me he create his own sealer, using Lacque paste and lacquer thinner.. he told me you can determine the ratio based on desired finish and time to dry.. what do you think about that? How hard is it to make? How benefic is it?

Any thought on why to use (or NOT to use) any of the above categories and why?


Next, the final finish. I mostly read people like to use Wax (I ordered Renaissance). What are the other options? A friend told me he uses spray silicon (tried it, it's fine, but doesn't seem to last very long), I tried Cue Silk which is nice too, but doesn't stay very long either.. tried Q-Wax which is fine too..

What are the options here?


I'm trying to see a difference when I burnish with leather before/after and I dont feel much difference. How is it an important step?

Same for the ferrule and side of tip, I'd like a glossy ferrule and side of tip. I've been told to use car polishing compound.. I got Pure Brazilian Carnauba Wax.. I'm affraid that ain't polishing compound, right? Anyways, it doesn't make the ferrule glossy at all.

Is it possible I didn't buff long enough with a paper towel? Or is it not the right product?

Thanks for any advice :)
 
R

rhncue

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
nfuids said:
Hi there!

I'm starting to actively trying to improve my cue repair/maintenance skills.. I've been reading a hell of a lot lately and wanted to learn more about the different sealer.. It is my understanding there is pretty various type
- Lacquer
- Polyurethane
- Vernish
- Shellac

Can anyone tell me in which category regular "cue sealer" falls in? I'm thinking Lacquer, but have no idea. I've been suggested to use http://www.rockler.com/zinsser-bullseye-sealcoat (was looking for something near by, didn't want to wait for shipping, thought I ordered some from cueman).

I also spoke to a cue repar guy around here and he tells me he create his own sealer, using Lacque paste and lacquer thinner.. he told me you can determine the ratio based on desired finish and time to dry.. what do you think about that? How hard is it to make? How benefic is it?

Any thought on why to use (or NOT to use) any of the above categories and why?


Next, the final finish. I mostly read people like to use Wax (I ordered Renaissance). What are the other options? A friend told me he uses spray silicon (tried it, it's fine, but doesn't seem to last very long), I tried Cue Silk which is nice too, but doesn't stay very long either.. tried Q-Wax which is fine too..

What are the options here?


I'm trying to see a difference when I burnish with leather before/after and I dont feel much difference. How is it an important step?

Same for the ferrule and side of tip, I'd like a glossy ferrule and side of tip. I've been told to use car polishing compound.. I got Pure Brazilian Carnauba Wax.. I'm affraid that ain't polishing compound, right? Anyways, it doesn't make the ferrule glossy at all.

Is it possible I didn't buff long enough with a paper towel? Or is it not the right product?

Thanks for any advice :)
Click to expand...

Bullseye is what I usually use. It is way to thick straight from the can so I usually cut with alcohol. I use 60% alcohol to 40% Bullseye.

The brand of lacquer doesn't have to be bullseye. I would look for some local. Just find a brand that is clear enough and cut it. A can will last a long time as long as you keep it sealed.

I doubt if the wax that you are using is "pure" carnauba wax. The stuff is just plain ole to hard. I use cue wax myself. The trick is to get on a good coat and then to buff it all back off again. You only want to leave the woods pores filled. Wax is a commodity that will stick to everything on earth except to itself. It will just get gummy and hold the dirt.

Dick
 
nfuids

nfuids

eh?
Silver Member
rhncue said:
Bullseye is what I usually use. It is way to thick straight from the can so I usually cut with alcohol. I use 60% alcohol to 40% Bullseye.
Click to expand...

Rubbing alcohol? Or denatured? Btw, what's the differenve?


rhncue said:
The brand of lacquer doesn't have to be bullseye. I would look for some local. Just find a brand that is clear enough and cut it. A can will last a long time as long as you keep it sealed.
Click to expand...

The one i linked to is a wax free formula, is that important? Or any lacquer would do?

rhncue said:
I doubt if the wax that you are using is "pure" carnauba wax. The stuff is just plain ole to hard. I use cue wax myself. The trick is to get on a good coat and then to buff it all back off again. You only want to leave the woods pores filled. Wax is a commodity that will stick to everything on earth except to itself. It will just get gummy and hold the dirt.
Click to expand...

So you leave your cue on the sanded lacquer?

If i were to wax it, on long (just approx.) in minutes to polish it off?

Thanks a lot
 
Palmetto cue

Palmetto cue

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The Renaissance is the wax I currently use. I like it. I used to use Butchers bowling wax, but it's become harder to come by.
 
nfuids

nfuids

eh?
Silver Member
Palmetto cue said:
The Renaissance is the wax I currently use. I like it. I used to use Butchers bowling wax, but it's become harder to come by.
Click to expand...

And how do you apply the wax? I mean specifically.. like paper towel or microfibe or anything else? Approx How long do you buff the wax once dried?

Thanks
 
nfuids

nfuids

eh?
Silver Member
rhncue said:
The brand of lacquer doesn't have to be bullseye. I would look for some local. Just find a brand that is clear enough and cut it.
Click to expand...

Would that work?

IMG_2166.jpg
 
Mcues

Mcues

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
nfuids said:
And how do you apply the wax? I mean specifically.. like paper towel or microfibe or anything else? Approx How long do you buff the wax once dried?

Thanks
Click to expand...

It's all about the preparation before the wax. You can use the blue shop paper towels they have a smooth tight knit or any soft clean cloth. First build a wax base while spinning 1500 to 2000 rpm not much pressure, once you have enough wax on there then you can begin to buff back and forth and do not stay in one spot. As to how long? Some things only experience can teach. When it looks to your satisfaction your done.

There's a sequence to any polishing of a surface, wax is the last step :) Your ferrules and side of your tips are not going to have that finished look unless you make the surfaces smooth before hand whether is using different polishing compounds or sandpaper.

Mario
 
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Palmetto cue

Palmetto cue

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Mcues said:
It's all about the preparation before the wax. You can use the blue shop paper towels they have a smooth tight knit or any soft clean cloth. First build a wax base while spinning 1500 to 2000 rpm not much pressure, once you have enough wax on there then you can begin to buff back and forth and do not stay in one spot. As to how long? Some things only experience can teach. When it looks to your satisfaction your done.

There's a sequence to any polishing of a surface, wax is the last step :) Your ferrules and side of your tips are not going to have that finished look unless you make the surfaces smooth before hand whether is using different polishing compounds or sandpaper.

Mario
Click to expand...

This is great advice in my opinion. I would like to emphasize the importance of using paper towels. Cloth towels can be dangerous.
 
greyghost

greyghost

Coast to Coast
Silver Member
yes exactly.....this is a great thread...we obviously have some new people to cuemaking/machinery use.

rotating machinery....

many people....and i'm gonna slightly fuss the "board" meaning like im giving a safety class offshore or at our shop to operators and other instrument techs, because I build, design, troubleshoot and engineer the safety systems on offshore oil/gas production facilities lol.


yall get on a forum....get interested in building a cue. oh goodie...oh a book on building cues is only 70 bucks....ill read this.....

oh crap man its only 10k to get kinda pretty decently well equipped to do inlays too.....wowzers

and like a teenager who knows everything because they read it on the internet.......you dont know chit.

the equipment we use is DANGEROUS. Some of the chemicals DANGEROUS. Some of the wood dust and antler/ivory dust DANGEROUS

ROTATING EQUIPMENT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.......proper eye protection is REQUIRED....not a maybe....i see guys posting videos of them working...no ppe.

its gonna happen when you dont expect it. something gets in your eye, or irreparibly damages it.

loose clothing gets caught up......hightower it wont kill you.....an engine lathe....has more than enough power to rip your arm, head or torso off your body if you get caught up in the chucks and such.......a cue would break first if you wrent' wapped into chuck.....

older style lathes have no spring pin in chuck key.....which is huge and heavy...people leave them in and turn them on.....if that hit me in the face id look like tex hex.

whatever you got in a library you better double that in saftey stuff...on everything. go fry your ass huffing glue and finishes and solvents...

second nature to me because i work on a at all times possible BOMB or hellfire.

that and the girls like how i look and i'd like to keep my ears, eyes, arms, hands, fingers, head and such in the same place and like they are untill i finally get old someday and more broken in like a good pair of bluejeans....you know what i mean, like kurt russels face ;) lol

use the 5 and 5 rule at all times...when not sure. step back 5 ft....analize and access the situation.

prejob task jsas are also good, listing the steps you will take, it will also help you to become better at doing what your doing.

want to know how to build a better cue and be better cue maker.....do what pool players do and build a better pre shot routine.

also side note on the paper towels. i love using my metal bandsaw and i chop paper towel and rolls of sandpaper down, so not to waste it.....you dont need the whole paper towel, especially the blue ones and such, the nice ones......they aren't free lol

plus thats more money for something else

and everyone needs to look at pics to see what happens when you start being lax...

https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs...s_ox&hsimp=yhs-sgm_fb&hspart=SGMedia&y=Search

-Greyghost
 
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J

john coloccia

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
+1000 on no cloth towels. That's Lathe 101. No gloves either. Not really relevant to what we're doing here, but with wood lathes there's quite the temptation if you're working on it a lot. But if you want to see some excitement, get a cloth towel wrapped up in a chuck some day.

Personally, I tend to wear a Trend Airshield when I'm working in the shop. It feels bulky at first, but it's actually quite liberating when you know you can basically look however and wherever you want, and you have full face protection. I wear a leather apron too, and have a much heavier turning apron when I'm at a wood lathe or when I'm buffing at my buffing wheel. Every now and then, something gets flung your way and the leather really does do a reasonable job of giving a little protection at least. If you work with wood enough, eventually you'll run into a piece that explodes when it hits the jointer/planer/whatever or have something else go wrong. Case hardened walnut is always fun when you try to send that through a table saw. :angry:
 
greyghost

greyghost

Coast to Coast
Silver Member
john coloccia said:
+1000 on no cloth towels. That's Lathe 101. No gloves either. Not really relevant to what we're doing here, but with wood lathes there's quite the temptation if you're working on it a lot. But if you want to see some excitement, get a cloth towel wrapped up in a chuck some day.

Personally, I tend to wear a Trend Airshield when I'm working in the shop. It feels bulky at first, but it's actually quite liberating when you know you can basically look however and wherever you want, and you have full face protection. I wear a leather apron too, and have a much heavier turning apron when I'm at a wood lathe or when I'm buffing at my buffing wheel. Every now and then, something gets flung your way and the leather really does do a reasonable job of giving a little protection at least. If you work with wood enough, eventually you'll run into a piece that explodes when it hits the jointer/planer/whatever or have something else go wrong. Case hardened walnut is always fun when you try to send that through a table saw. :angry:
Click to expand...



roger that! i was telling my boss about stuff like this....he likes to do carpentry to.....i was talking like i did in my post an dhe was like yea yea yea.....week later using a router.......tips of two fingers gone.....i looked at my operations manager and looked at our parts guy that was there when i was talking about machine saftey the previous week.

"you gonna tell him or i gotta tell him?"

my buddy shrugged said "told ya so charlie"



another thing that actually recently caught me, not nec dangerous for me but for the cue....friend helped me move a big dresser, so asked me to change tip on his CRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP import.

i lifted the dings and such had to take some mass down but it was fine, then i went to take final pass on the ferrule and OMG it was so soft....like nothing i tried would not leave ridges and it was too wobbly to have used the router for any of it in the first place to even have a possibility for smoother cut.

so i started stepping with micro grits and such.....dammit....still ridges....
i do all sorts of custom wood work and restoration of old things so i have lots of products for diff things thankfully....

so i tried with steel wool being that i had some varying grits and it just seemed like since the microgrit wasn't working good enough, and all the sandpaper even with oil or water was streaking even to 1000 grit....i fig what the hell maybe this dam steel wool in 0-0000 may do something....

i started with a 000....just to see any result....wasn't even spinning fast, maybe a grand......(i say not fast because the lathe ran rock up well past 5k...on my finishing rig basically a midsize thats upgraded)

dam wool caught and just straight melted the ferrule in like no time and i barely had pressure....should have known that would happen being that it was leaving tool marks even on such feather passes...

so i ended up having to bring it down to 12.5 and rest of shaft too.....he likes my smaller ferrules anyways so he was kinda happy to try it and was watching me have trouble with his cheap cue...because generally i dont put stuf like that in the lathe....becuaase ^^^^^ these things happen, rewraps are like putting a gun to your head, seen cues half fall apart because it was all kinda held togehter with glue and fiberglass with hollow inside.

so i breathed and took shaft down again, got ferrulle like it was before with light ridges, i cut the steel wool in a strip and wrapped it over my finger tip and dabbed a little oil on it......then touched it and passed some times.

then came back with diff polishing compound sticks for metal and jewelery and buffed those out....and then finished it off with a seal and hit it from 1500 micro grit to 4000 and hit then with a steel wool 0000 that i use for polishing bare wood and keeps the dust in it........

butter and no ridges....if i hadn't used the compounds i probably would have just snapped the shaft in half and gave him this lucasi i took on trade for some easy work lol.

dont spend alot on a first cue....but do spend more than 25$......alot of cue can be had for between 100-150$ thats not a complete piece of trash. those cheap cheap imports are just eddie wheated to death
 
J

john coloccia

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Someone makes a safe cloth rag for lathes. It's designed to come apart instead of tangle up. I just can't remember what it's called at the moment, and can't seem to find it online, but it's out there somewhere if someone wants to look for it. There's a lathe "safety towel" too, or something like that, but it's just a thick, woven paper towel, and my experience is it's no better than the Scott shop towels. They're not bad, actually, so I never bothered with the cloth one.
 
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Colormegone2002

Colormegone2002

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
greyghost said:
roger that! i was telling my boss about stuff like this....he likes to do carpentry to.....i was talking like i did in my post an dhe was like yea yea yea.....week later using a router.......tips of two fingers gone.....i looked at my operations manager and looked at our parts guy that was there when i was talking about machine saftey the previous week.

"you gonna tell him or i gotta tell him?"

my buddy shrugged said "told ya so charlie"





another thing that actually recently caught me, not nec dangerous for me but for the cue....friend helped me move a big dresser, so asked me to change tip on his CRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPP import.

i lifted the dings and such had to take some mass down but it was fine, then i went to take final pass on the ferrule and OMG it was so soft....like nothing i tried would not leave ridges and it was too wobbly to have used the router for any of it in the first place to even have a possibility for smoother cut.

so i started stepping with micro grits and such.....dammit....still ridges....
i do all sorts of custom wood work and restoration of old things so i have lots of products for diff things thankfully....

so i tried with steel wool being that i had some varying grits and it just seemed like since the microgrit wasn't working good enough, and all the sandpaper even with oil or water was streaking even to 1000 grit....i fig what the hell maybe this dam steel wool in 0-0000 may do something....

i started with a 000....just to see any result....wasn't even spinning fast, maybe a grand......(i say not fast because the lathe ran rock up well past 5k...on my finishing rig basically a midsize thats upgraded)

dam wool caught and just straight melted the ferrule in like no time and i barely had pressure....should have known that would happen being that it was leaving tool marks even on such feather passes...

so i ended up having to bring it down to 12.5 and rest of shaft too.....he likes my smaller ferrules anyways so he was kinda happy to try it and was watching me have trouble with his cheap cue...because generally i dont put stuf like that in the lathe....becuaase ^^^^^ these things happen, rewraps are like putting a gun to your head, seen cues half fall apart because it was all kinda held togehter with glue and fiberglass with hollow inside.

so i breathed and took shaft down again, got ferrulle like it was before with light ridges, i cut the steel wool in a strip and wrapped it over my finger tip and dabbed a little oil on it......then touched it and passed some times.

then came back with diff polishing compound sticks for metal and jewelery and buffed those out....and then finished it off with a seal and hit it from 1500 micro grit to 4000 and hit then with a steel wool 0000 that i use for polishing bare wood and keeps the dust in it........

butter and no ridges....if i hadn't used the compounds i probably would have just snapped the shaft in half and gave him this lucasi i took on trade for some easy work lol.

dont spend alot on a first cue....but do spend more than 25$......alot of cue can be had for between 100-150$ thats not a complete piece of trash. those cheap cheap imports are just eddie wheated to death
Click to expand...

Please for my sake watch the "eddie wheated".lol. I did get a cue from him in 07 when I

stayed 3 miles from his grandmothers home. I,unlike many others did get my cue.I love

the butt of it (quilted maple)merry widow but the shaft turned into rocking chair

material in like 3 months. I have kept the butt and put an ld shaft on it.What can I say,

I'm just too broke to buy another cue and it hurt my feelings just a little when u

mentioned Ed's name.lol

I'm finished crying now
 
greyghost

greyghost

Coast to Coast
Silver Member
Colormegone2002 said:
Please for my sake watch the "eddie wheated".lol. I did get a cue from him in 07 when I

stayed 3 miles from his grandmothers home. I,unlike many others did get my cue.I love

the butt of it (quilted maple)merry widow but the shaft turned into rocking chair

material in like 3 months. I have kept the butt and put an ld shaft on it.What can I say,

I'm just too broke to buy another cue and it hurt my feelings just a little when u

mentioned Ed's name.lol

I'm finished crying now
Click to expand...



im sorry for your loss.....i shall refrain from mentioning he who draws veneer lol
 
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