terrible workmanship

Jim Baxter said:
I have to agree with Alton. Alton makes the most Beautiful cue caps out there. I do my best also, to match stich rings , ring thickness, color of wood, size of joint, you name it and try to do all this from a picture , trying to get the correct information is like pulling teeth, but when shipped they better be right. I have always redone or refunded every set that was not right , unless the customer became a A--H--- about it. I sell lots of sets at a discount becouse a ring was not the same thickness , or the cocobolo was not dark enough , but this is not a big problem, very often. Just my 2 cents worth. Correct information is priceless. Jim
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I can see this being tough Jim. Especially on wood colorand tone. Your computer monitor and color settings are surely going to be off from the customers by a tad bit. Lighting from the photo compared to cue in hand makes all the difference in the world as well. So to all cue cap makers I say you guys have it tough for such little profit so for that I give RESPECT:bow-down:
 
Lazerrus said:
I can see this being tough Jim. Especially on wood colorand tone. Your computer monitor and color settings are surely going to be off from the customers by a tad bit. Lighting from the photo compared to cue in hand makes all the difference in the world as well. So to all cue cap makers I say you guys have it tough for such little profit so for that I give RESPECT:bow-down:
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Thanks for the understanding, but we'll continue to do our best. Lots of the j/ps I list on here are wood not right color, or customer changed there mind and wanted changes after the j/ps were done , and pictures sent. Not that easy to change at that time, just start over. Thanks jim
 
I accept different flaws or inperfections based on a cue makers ability and the cost of the cue .

In other words I wouldn't hold BoB Flynn (Denali Cues $800 cue) to the same standard as Ron Haley( $5000+) cue. I have ordered and recieved excellent cues from both.

No different than comparing a toyota to a BMW . Both good cars but held to two different standards.


I do expect the basics to be correct though . Such as weight , length, is the cue what I ordered etc. If it isn't up to my standards or I feel that there has been a mistake made and the cuemaker refuses to try and resolve it , I vote with my wallet and just won't buy from them again.
 
Since I am assuming that I am one of the two you have had this happen with, I will give my thoughts on this as it related to me.

I believe I've already told Steve this, but when he posted photos of the cue I built last year, my first impression was that the photos made the cue look bad. I had him send me the cue back so that I could fix the problems. In the end, I ended up building him a new cue and at the same time replacing every single inlay (rings included) in the second cue. I let him pick which cue he wanted (if any) at the meet and greet in CT this past summer. I also told him that after rebuilding the original cue, I can honestly say that the photos did not make the cue look bad, they actually made it look better than it was. The cue was horrible.

Did I send Steve the first cue, thinking it was as bad as it was? Absolutely not. I was actually proud of that cue when it left my house. As ridiculous as that may sound after seeing the macro photos, that is the truth. Would I be proud of that cue now? Of course the answer would be no. I was originally going to put the first cue through the band saw, but I'm glad that I didn't. Fixing it, helped me see a lot of things that weren't apparent in the photos.

I did learn a lot from that experience, so I would like to think that was a good thing. Were the two new cues perfect? I don't think so. I don't think I will ever build one that I can honestly say the cue is perfect. I would also say that I was in over my head when I built Steve's first cue. I was working beyond the limitations of myself and my cnc machine.

I do know that as a result of that cue, I spend a lot more time on each inlay. Testing most several times and I also do not use any colored epoxy to hide sloppy work. I test and test until it fits the way I want it to and then I start on the cue. When I built that first cue, that was not the case.

I can also say that it is not a very pleasant feeling to have what seems like everybody piling on and bad mouthing you on the internet. Because of this, my answer to Steve would be I think it would be best to first show your photos to the maker and point out your concerns. Hopefully that will be enough to motivate him to correct the problems and fix any future issues. Calling him up and saying this sucks or that sucks, I don't think will help. Taking some good photos and explaining to him (if it's not obvious) what is wrong might help him see some things he may not have seen.
 
Work within limits

I would probably send the cue back and just ask for a refund because I don't like dealing with conflict.

However, if I was working with a "new" cuemaker or someone that was trying something "outside" of the norm I would have more patience and work with the cuemaker so he understood my concerns. I would only hope that when I was ordering the cue and going through the specs and design that the cuemaker would speak up and say "I am not sure, I am the guy for you" or "I never did that before" if he thought he was taking on more then he could chew. This way you know what to expect.

Steve, at the end of the day if you were able to assist and help a cuemaker develop you should be proud of how you handled "option 1." I just hope the cuemaker was willing to understand your disappointment and gracious to be allowed to correct the flaws.

rgs,

Sanjay
 
Tony i meant no disrepect with my post. I know how you feel. I have cues hanging in my closet that i was very proud of at the time of the build. Now i go back and revisit them and they are not close to now. All you can do is keep makings strides to get better.
 
I am certainly not as experienced as many Cue Makers on this site, but this thread has brought up some good points on both sides of this discussion. In my opinion when a cue leaves your shop it is ready for the world to see, and it should be built to the highest standards of the Cue Maker who made it at that point in time. Now when a buyer orders a cue from a cue maker in most cases this is not just a shot in the dark, the buyer has seen this persons work and liked what they saw. This creates an expectation of a finished product along with the items price for the buyer.

Now when a cue maker is contacted or commissioned to build a cue for well known high end collector there are definitely expectations on the part of the buyer and the cue maker. The buyer must be clear about his expectations and the cue maker must be equally clear concerning his ability to meet the buyers expectations. If at anytime during the building process the cue maker doesn't feel his abilities will meet the buyers expectations due to the out come of the finished build the cue maker should not send the finished product to the buyer. Where I am concerned, I would never send a cue to some one that I was not happy with under the above circumstances. Now some may laugh and say that is easy for you, your are just a small time guy who has little experience no big collector would want one of your cues anyway. while this is very true, it is also important to draw a line in the proverbial sand and never cross it, ones standards can never be compromised and the sooner a person sets those standards and lives by them the better off that person will be.

Craftsmanship, is not a God given gift, it is however, a serious commitment on the part of an individual that will allow no compromise concerning the standards and the quality of a finished product that one produces. Money, can never be allowed to cloud the issue, and ones integrity in word and deed can never be compromised for a dollar sign. I believe once some one starts down that path the odds are very slim that they will ever recover, not because of external forces, but because of flaws in the persons character. Unfortunately most people who choose this route can't see the forest through the trees, and if you don't realize there is a problem and you can't clearly see it there is no way to correct it.


JIMO
 
dave sutton said:
Tony i meant no disrepect with my post. I know how you feel. I have cues hanging in my closet that i was very proud of at the time of the build. Now i go back and revisit them and they are not close to now. All you can do is keep makings strides to get better.
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Dave, I didn't even see your post. I was probably typing mine while you did yours. I was doing things at the same time, so was posting while waiting on machines to finish cuts. Took me a while to make that post.
 
Cues are what some have termed as "Funtional Art". I occasionaly go to craft fairs with my wife. There will be some things displayed that are done nearly flawlessly and other craft items that show a little cruder design. Both are art and should be appreciated for what they are. I can find flaws in almost every cue I have closely inspected and especially the ones I built. I will say up front to any who wants one of my cues, that they should expect it to play like one of my cues is known for and also do not expect it to be perfectly flawless in artistic execution.
For example I do not cut the silver stitch slots in after the cue is assembled. I instead use old school stitch rings. And when using true slot rings that are inlaid before assembly and then slipped over a tenon, the alignment might change some during the tapering process. I could explain why this is, but that would be for another thread. There are methods I could use to get every slot and inlay in the cue aligned perfectly, and for enough $$ I might decide to take the time to do so. But what I sell I still consider to be nice funtional art. And I feel I charge a very fair price for the level of art I put into a cue.
So to address Steve's questions. I think it would be better to ask for a refund if someone were to buy a cue from me and was not happy with it. But also, since I do not claim to build a perfect cue, I would say that the buyer should familiarize himself with my cues and level of artistic execution and that is what he should expect. I would also say that the buyer should let the cuemaker know up front what level of perfection he wants for an agreed upon price. That alone would eliminate 99% of misunderstandings and hard feelings that might happen later. I once heard of a cuemaker getting slammed because something in the cue was .004" off from something else in the cue. I have passed on building cues for people that I could tell up front that I could not make happy for the price they wanted to pay.
The bottom line is the cuemaker may not have a lack of integrity because he does not send out flawless cues. It just may be an expression of his artistic design execution. The market decides what price people will pay for various levels of artistic execution. I often see people wanting Black Boar quality from lower level cuemakers at lower level cuemaker's prices. People should get at least what they pay for, and to make sure that happens the buyer should know the established artistic execution of the builder and the builder should know the expectations of the buyer.
 
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lenoxmjs said:
i do expect the basics to be correct though . Such as weight , length, is the cue what i ordered etc. If it isn't up to my standards or i feel that there has been a mistake made and the cuemaker refuses to try and resolve it , i vote with my wallet and just won't buy from them again.
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exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
hey

Sorry I havent answered until now. I havent been around and this got going pretty quick.

The original intent of this post was to get the opinion of others because I was clearly wondering if I had taken the right course on these cues. When these things did happen it was taken care of by the cuemakers....ssss.... in an honorable fashion, but I was wondering now if I did the right thing or not.

I just cannot understand how after spending so many hours staring and working on a cue under magnification, someone could send out a cue with so many flaws that are clearly seen with the naked eye. That kind of disregard for the customers opinion and there own reputation seems to be begging and asking to be exposed to everyone.

On the other hand, because I wasnt ever voted in as the official Cue Cop....LOL. I just didnt see it as being worth potentially hurting someones career and livelyhood because I was unhappy, with 2 cues. I have been thrilled with many others.

I can clearly see both views, in favor of both. I am glad I went the way I did, and was jsut curious what you guys thought about it.....
 
tikkler said:
because I wasnt ever voted in as the official Cue Cop....LOL.
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I like that. Steve the Cue Cop has a nice ring to it
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cueman said:
Cues are what some have termed as "Funtional Art". I occasionaly go to craft fairs with my wife. There will be some things displayed that are done nearly flawlessly and other craft items that show a little cruder design. Both are art and should be appreciated for what they are. I can find flaws in almost every cue I have closely inspected and especially the ones I built. I will say up front to any who wants one of my cues, that they should expect it to play like one of my cues is known for and also do not expect it to be perfectly flawless in artistic execution.
For example I do not cut the silver stitch slots in after the cue is assembled. I instead use old school stitch rings. And when using true slot rings that are inlaid before assembly and then slipped over a tenon, the alignment might change some during the tapering process. I could explain why this is, but that would be for another thread. There are methods I could use to get every slot and inlay in the cue aligned perfectly, and for enough $$ I might decide to take the time to do so. But what I sell I still consider to be nice funtional art. And I feel I charge a very fair price for the level of art I put into a cue.
So to address Steve's questions. I think it would be better to ask for a refund if someone were to buy a cue from me and was not happy with it. But also, since I do not claim to build a perfect cue, I would say that the buyer should familiarize himself with my cues and level of artistic execution and that is what he should expect. I would also say that the buyer should let the cuemaker know up front what level of perfection he wants for an agreed upon price. That alone would eliminate 99% of misunderstandings and hard feelings that might happen later. I once heard of a cuemaker getting slammed because something in the cue was .004" off from something else in the cue. I have passed on building cues for people that I could tell up front that I could not make happy for the price they wanted to pay.
The bottom line is the cuemaker may not have a lack of integrity because he does not send out flawless cues. It just may be an expression of his artistic design execution. The market decides what price people will pay for various levels of artistic execution. I often see people wanting Black Boar quality from lower level cuemakers at lower level cuemaker's prices. People should get at least what they pay for, and to make sure that happens the buyer should know the established artistic execution of the builder and the builder should know the expectations of the buyer.
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Really not to hard to tell by a persons attitude wheather you can ever make them happy, sometimes its best to just cut the losses and walk away.
 

btw tommy . . . vols are going down! ; )[/QUOTE]

LOL, it was a great game, should have got down with you and got some points.
 
I think the best advice was given years ago"do unto others as you would have them do unto you" lets say you had this problem with your best friend,his cue didn't meet your standards,"what do you do?'

You don't have to let it slide,neither do you have to disgrace or humiliate him either. Cue makers are regular guys sometimes things go wrong,they spend hours working on something and it just does not get right,sure he can trash it,but last week he put one in the little can,a guy comes buy and saye 'Whats this" its something I goofed up on so I trashed it says the cuemaker.Looks OK to me I'll give you $5000 for it rather than wait.i'll take it like it is,20 years from now it will be worth what those old Balabushkas are worth and they almost all had imperfections,but hey thats part of the charm,Picasso took an occasional careless stroke,you wanna throw away one now?'

So the most famous cuemaker in the world lets go a less than perfect cue,so what 90% of us would be glad to have it,if it doesn't reach your standards,Talk to him nicely,whether it works out your way or not you have no right to ruin his reputation. After all if he was your mom you wouldn't want someone to magnify her every flaw'

In the early days one of ,if not the most famous cuemakers in the world made me a cue,the wrap was a poor fit,a real rookie blunder. Now I loved this guy,so I sent the cue back and called him and explained in a way you treat your friends,you can't let this work go out of your shop because...He turned into the one of the best ever

I am not addressing this to Tikkler but to the entire Az public,sometimes there gets to be an angry criticat spirit on these post that smacks of big bully and in response I am calling for a different spirit.Why kick a guy for next to nothing,especially when it got nothing to do with you anyway.Some of these people want to lynch me for not posting pictures.

I know there are some cuemakers not so far from crooks,and they should be dealt with in a different manner,but I don't believe Tikkler was suggesting that now.

Dean
 
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Photos

I find that when I take photos of our work I can see things that I can't see or just missed with the naked eye.

This is also something that is known about human ability. Humans generally don't have the ability to focus on very close objects without magnification for very long but we can study images intently.

We try to photograph our work each day and review it. Having several eyes on it seems to help us to identify issues and correct them before finishing the cases.

I know that this adds an extra layer of work but sometimes it's helpful to view your own work as the camera sees it.

These days it's more important than ever to be vigilant about the work you put out because of the internet and digital cameras. Once someone puts out pictures of your worst work in full detail then it's part of the "permanent record" and if that happens to be a person's first and only contact with your work then that's how they view you from then on. Most people don't react to the world the way a scientist would.

A scientist views each new thing as an anomaly until it's corroborated. In other words they don't see one bad cue and conclude that all cues from that maker are bad. They seek out other samples to judge against. But people in general are different in that they are much more influenced by first impressions. If the first impression is a great cue then they think all the cues from the maker are great and are more willing to be forgiving if something is messed up on a later sample.

But if the first impression is of a bad cue then they have low expectations of the cuemaker and if they then see a good one they assume that the cuemaker has vastly improved but are still leery.

So this is the risk that a craftsman runs when putting their product out there and it has flaws that they should easily see. If it has flaws that really only come out under magnification then that's another story. I certainly feel that if someone has a reasonable expectation that their product will be shown with high resolution closeups then they should take that into account when building the product.

My staff hates photo review time. Sometimes it's the only way to see things that aren't turning out right though and in the end that helps us to build a tighter product.

Now if I could just stop doing the stupid things like putting the handle on the wrong side.......(and I do literally mean "I" as in I told them the wrong side in the first place).

Well, as they say, the camera doesn't lie.
 
John, I hope you don't have me in mind when it comes to pictures and Fury cues :wink:

I think pretty much the whole specter of views has been reflected in this thread.
The only thing I have to say is that there would always be a customer which would not
be satisfied in the world we work in, even if he/she kind of say so after receiving the "product" ...

It's like reading a book and watching the video afterwards : For some, the imagination on how it would
look would never be the same as what they have end up seeing in real life...
Also, the one with the microscope investigating the inlay and the like - should be warned
when they order - if you don't use the microscope your self. Pictures could be though when you have slipped
and missed a spot....

Personally - I'm picky and I'm picky on what I make - but that don't mean that there would not
be any others out there being worse/more picky than me.
The world would never be perfect in some eyes.

I guess it's the law of Eddie Murpy :joyful:

K
 
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