The cost of a Custom Cue

From my stand point as a customer.

How much does it cost the cuemaker to build a custom cue?

I am not really interested in his costs and I don't care what profit margin he is working with.

If I like the cue I buy it.....and I hope the cuemaker is making as much profit as he can possibly make on the cue.

If a cuemaker wants to sell cues dirt cheap I don't care and if a cuemaker wants to sell super highend cues more power to him and anything in between.

I order and buy cues from cuemakers that I admire and respect their workmanship and I am more than happy to pay accordingly.

I believe that a conversation on what cuemakers should charge and how much profit they make is quite ignorant.

I believe that any cuemaker that gets involved in trying to prove his worth and prove his pricing is a reflection on his insecurity in his work and quality of his cues. The amount of cue orders and prices paid by customers will reflect the level of a cuemakers success.

The customer is the ultimate decider in what a custom cue is worth from any particular cuemaker by wether the cue is ordered or not at whatever price.

Long live all the real good cuemakers and I hope you all are rewarded with a whole bunch of money and a boat load of orders.


P.S. I believe every cue that I own and have ordered has been a excellent value and I have never regretted what I have spent on any one particular cue.
 
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HIRUN526 said:
I believe that a conversation on what cuemakers should charge and how much profit they make is quite ignorant.
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I agree but a cuemaker has know what his time is worth. However it is figured, it really doesn't matter. In the end, as you said, the customer's will decide. A cue is only worth what you are willing to pay for it.
 
And all this talk about a thread going sideways...............
TAP...TAP....TAP.................class.......CLASS.......CLAAAAASS!

In Arnot's original post he was breaking down the cost to own a custom cue.
Although I don't agree with the total analysis....I do understand where he was going with this. I do the same thing myself all the time when purchasing items with options. I will only divide the cost of the option into the length of the service time and ask myself if I'm willing to pay the extra X amount (per week or month) to have this option for my pleasure.
Where it's tough to make this determination on a custom cue would be getting everyone to agree on an average length of service time for the cue.
Arnot uses 10 years.......
But I guess if you calculate all you are comparing it too for the same length of time... it really wouldn't matter.
As far as cost of the cue.....post 81 by Hirun pretty much sums that up.

<~~~some people say I have ADD....but I don't.........was that a chicken in the neighbors yard yesterday?
 
HIRUN526 said:
Long live all the real good cuemakers and I hope you all are rewarded with a whole bunch of money and a boat load of orders.
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Couldn't agree more. Very well said.
 
I think if cuemakers calculated how much they made per hour, they'd quit.
Chester Krick once said he did not make cues because of the 8 dollar per hour he made while doing it. He could have taken his autocad skills somewhere else and made 5 times more.God bless him.
A lof of cuemakers survive b/c their wives work.
Some live at grammas' or parents' house and don't account for rent/mortgage.
Maybe those who live at gramma's or momma's basement should call their cues Bud Bundy Cues!!!
 
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All in all... it's all about what you legitimately want from the industry.... We can be greedy or we can be humble..... all cues are assembled pretty much the same way so why should I charge 1500.00+ for a cue that are built the SAME way ???? as a 500.00 one??

Becasue certain cuemakers have a bigger overhead ????? how is that the customer's problem ????????

Let's face it.. we cuemakers chose how fancy we wanted to be and how much we wanted to charge... no one has to buy a friggin' warehouse or spend a 100k plus on equipment just to build great cues !


- Eddie Wheat
 
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Eddie, could you please explain why a cuemaker should not pass on his overhead to his customers.

Thanks
 
Rodney said:
Eddie, could you please explain why a cuemaker should not pass on his overhead to his customers.

Thanks
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What I was trying to convey with my last message is that just becasue we choose to buy tons of equipment or invest in 500 pieces of shaftwood, the customer should not be punished becasue it is NOT a requirement but a luxury so the cuemaker CAN charge more for his cues, he does not need all of that to produce quality work, he chose to invest in that much money in it, just as I chose to buy a 15000.00 CNC mill... I did NOT need it but since I did pay cash and the money was not needed for anything else at the time, I do NOT include it as a debt with my business so I'm not going to charge my customer's for it !

There is a point in time where options become a neccessity and then the profit margin will be altered... but the point of all of this is just becasue someone has lower overhead doesn't mean they have to charge high prices for the same quality work, and there IS a market for high quality at a much more affordable price !

I guess I'm just lucky enough to have key equipment thats multi-functional without having to go in debt to accomplish the same end result !


- Eddie Wheat
 
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WheatCues said:
What I was trying to convey with my last message is that just becasue we choose to buy tons of equipment or invest in 500 pieces of shaftwood, the customer should not be punished becasue it is NOT a requirement but a luxury so the cuemaker CAN charge more for his cues, he does not need all of that to produce quality work, he chose to invest in that much money in it, just as I chose to buy a 15000.00 CNC mill... I did NOT need it but since I did pay cash and the money was not needed for anything else at the time, I do NOT include it as a debt with my business so I'm not going to charge my customer's for it !

There is a point in time where options become a neccessity and then the profit margin will be altered... but the point of all of this is just becasue someone has lower overhead doesn't mean they have to charge high prices for the same quality work, and there IS a market for high quality at a much more affordable price !

I guess I'm just lucky enough to have key equipment thats multi-functional without having to go in debt to accomplish the same end result !


- Eddie Wheat
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O.K. I guess I can see where your coming from.

If you buy 500 shafts now, wouldn't the end price be cheaper? Since I have been involved, I have seen enough wood price increases to justify buying all you can afford up front.

15k for machinery is a lot of $$ tied up to not get a return on you investment. I could spring for one cash too, but wouldn't I lose money by not including that in overhead. I'm not sure what your machine can do, but if you can do inlays, and change tapers on shafts, and butts, then I would certainly consider that an expense that your customers would greatly benefit from.

Just my .02
Thanks for the reply
 
Rodney said:
O.K. I guess I can see where your coming from.

If you buy 500 shafts now, wouldn't the end price be cheaper? Since I have been involved, I have seen enough wood price increases to justify buying all you can afford up front.

15k for machinery is a lot of $$ tied up to not get a return on you investment. I could spring for one cash too, but wouldn't I lose money by not including that in overhead. I'm not sure what your machine can do, but if you can do inlays, and change tapers on shafts, and butts, then I would certainly consider that an expense that your customers would greatly benefit from.

Just my .02
Thanks for the reply
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The CNC is an Align-rite and it does EVERYTHING.. I just need to learn it !!!!

Yes there is a benefit to buying wood at an abundance but of course that would mean finsding the space to store it too !

I'm getting bigger and bigger but I choose to expand as needed rather than buy large and grow into it !

It works for me and since I'm a virtual NOBODY in the cuemakers world I have to take that into consideration when marketing myself monetarily so that I am reasonable enough for anyone to take a chance on...

Let's face it... the custom cuemaking world is a tough market to break into and if you want to swim in this sharkpit you better have thick skin and real sharp teeth... becasue you either eat or become eaten !!!! it just doesn't seem to be a very cohabitative environment in the upper echelon of this industry !


- Eddie Wheat
 
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.....at home?

WesleyW said:
Where can I play pool, free of charge?
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-- oh, but no wait, let's think about the lights and heat and property taxes and/or mortgage payments and insurance and :rolleyes:

nothing is free :frown:

....very good point Mr. AW ;)
 
Arnot Wadsworth said:
I was thinking about the cost per hour of a custom cue.

If a player were to purchase a custom cue for $1000.00 and were
to use this cue for only 4 hours a week over a period of 10 years,
the cost per hour comes to only only $.48 cents per.

Now consider if this same person were to go out to dinner only
once per week and it were to cost him $30.00 and it took 2 hours
to eat the cost per hour comes to $15.00 hour.

To drive your car at 70 miles per hour for one hour and your car
gets 20 miles to the gallon, and gas cost $4.00 per gallon it
cost you over $7.00 per hour to drive.

If you were to go the movies and buy a Coke and Pop Corn and
the movie last for 2 hours...............

Personally I think a custom cue is a darn good value.
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It's an even better value if you can get just what you want not for $1000, but say, $200 or $250.

Obviously, it all depends on what features the cue will have. All those fancy inlays and rings and ivory ferrules and joints and butt caps and such aren't free.

Mr. Wadsworth, it seems to me that when getting into the really magnificent custom cues that the cost of materials is often rather small (unless one is speaking about diamonds and emeralds and gold and so on) compared to the cost of the highly skilled labor that goes into producing those works of art.

In your opinion, given your expertise into what it takes to make such a high end cue, how much is the cue maker typically making first, per cue, and second, on an hourly basis?

Thanks so much.

Flex
 
Arnot Wadsworth said:
I was thinking about the cost per hour of a custom cue.

If a player were to purchase a custom cue for $1000.00 and were
to use this cue for only 4 hours a week over a period of 10 years,
the cost per hour comes to only only $.48 cents per.

Now consider if this same person were to go out to dinner only
once per week and it were to cost him $30.00 and it took 2 hours
to eat the cost per hour comes to $15.00 hour.

To drive your car at 70 miles per hour for one hour and your car
gets 20 miles to the gallon, and gas cost $4.00 per gallon it
cost you over $7.00 per hour to drive.

If you were to go the movies and buy a Coke and Pop Corn and
the movie last for 2 hours...............

Personally I think a custom cue is a darn good value.
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You've gotten me thinking, and I decided to figure out what my recent acquisition costs me over the time period you've specified.

I ordered a fully custom cue from Schmelke about 6 weeks ago, and it came in about 2 weeks ago.

I specified gaboon ebony in the butt, a full splice into a straight maple forearm, the shaft to be made from the same piece of maple as the forearm, a 5/16 X 18 wood to wood joint, and 11mm tip, 1/2 inch ferrule, 15 inch pro taper, 19 ounces overall weight, no logo on the butt.

That cost me, including shipping, a grand total of $181. Beautiful cue, by the way, especially after adding a black stack leather wrap. Feels awesome, and plays great.

Plugging Mr. Wadsworth's numbers into the equation, but for my cue, I come up with a cost per hour of 8.7 cents.

However, I think just 4 hours a week is too little for me, and figuring in what I normally play on a monthly basis, over a 10 year period, the cost per hour for the use of my cue comes out to a measly 1.7 cents per hour, or, basically free.

Mr. Wadsworth, thank you for helping me understand what a great deal I got and, now that I think of it, if I wish to sell my cue in the future, there's no way I'll get less than $100 for it.

Cool.

Flex
 
Arnot Wadsworth said:
You are just trying to start another argument. Try it with someone else.
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Not at all. Just trying to find out what kind of money a good cue maker should expect to make.
 
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