have a purpleheart forearm with ebony points. small glue line showing on one point.what do you guys recommend i touch it up with.because of illnesses i am far behind on cue orders.customer is patient but wants his cue.so any help would be greatly appriciated. thanks brian
touch up points
- Thread starter bman43
- Start date
If the cue has no finish yet, then mix some ebony dust with epoxy to a toothpaste consistency. Fill the void with that. Given that the groove is clean cut & it's the point square that was chunked or off dimension, then this will work fine. Ebony is the only wood you can do this with & look right. Good luck.
And then hope your customer isnt reading this forum.
good one lol
i filled it with epoxy mixed with pigment, i came up a little gray.so i need to color it.maybe a marker or similar?
i filled it with epoxy mixed with pigment, i came up a little gray.so i need to color it.maybe a marker or similar?
If you ask your customer what you should do how do you think he would feel about you using a marker?
If you were the customer how would you feel about it?
Correcting a mistake is one thing but covering up a mistake that way just isnt right. If youre going to make cues to sell do it right
or dont do it at all. Any cue maker that covers up errors using a marker or filler isnt giving the customer their moneys worth.
Anybody that suggests you using a method like this is leading you down a path youll eventually wish you had not taken.
Sooner or later its going to bite you on the butt.
Make the man a new cue.
Wow. I'm kinda surprised that this thread isn't 5 pages deep by now. Most of the time around here you would have been labeled a hack/quack or just plain unethical for even attempting to hide a flaw in a cue. Most would be really surprised by how the "masters" hide their mistakes. I've owned several of the "master cue makers" cues and was able to find cosmetic touch-ups in every one of them. I was hanging out at Joe Blackburns booth at DCC, and one of the dealers there wanted to change the wrap on a $4500 new cue from linen to leather. Joe took the linen off and the cue maker had used masking tape in the wrap groove to shim the linen out to where it would be flush to the finish. Had someone bought this cue with the linen, they would probably never know about the tape. This cue maker would be in most peoples top 3 living makers.
Absolutely correct!!! Some of the people on this site have their heads so far in the clouds they have absolutely no clue of how things are done in the real world. I read some of this stuff and just have to laugh. Cue builders are people and just like all people when they build things and are working with materials, especially wood, some things happen. Some are minor and some are more disastrous. Anyone who thinks that any cue maker on earth would throw away a cue over a slight void such as this has been on some illegal substances and his head in the clouds for way to long. If cues were built to such exacting standards where nothing could be fixed the prices would be 10 times higher than at present just paying for the furnace big enough to burn all of the rejects.
Dick
Learn from your mistakes and remember, a bad rep lasts a very long time.
Since it was me that said make the man a new cue Ill go out on a limb and assume youre referring to my post.
Glad I could bring a laugh into your day Dick but I really dont see whats so funny or slight about a void in a point being
covered up with a marker. Maybe you can explain the humor in it.
So just to be sure were on the same page here. Youre suggesting that covering a void in a point using a marker is acceptable?
No doubt the void was noticed before the forearm was joined to the handle. Assuming the cue is a half spliced that is.
Why go any further. Why not cut that point out and replace it or make a new forearm. Then there wouldnt be a need to make a new cue would there.
If yout ake a second to read what I said youll read Correcting a mistake is one thing but covering up a mistake that way just isnt right.
And sorry to bust your bubble but I dont even smoke much less use illegals. I do have my head in the clouds though. Every morning when I get up and drive to work Im on a natural high. Wouldnt have it any other way thank you.
Ok, I have typed some smartass responses & deleted them before sending. I'm not completely sure how to respond. This is incredible.
I build Sugartree cues. In every cue I build, there is at least one flaw that requires special attention. Yes, every cue. It might be points that have a void, points that are slightly uneven, a void in a ringpack, some tearout in figured wood, etc. But each cue has it's own unique challenges. Over the years I have learned how to remedy & correct these issues. They are not all preventable or else i'd be a perfect cuemaker. So I have to correct them. I don't rebuild a cue over a minor flaw like a void or chipout in a point that I can easily correct before applying finish. Why would I? When I make a correction, it's done so that it's invisible and the outcome looks as if there was never an issue.
Why should my customers find fault in this? Shouldn't they instead be happy that I am knowledgeable enough and have enough pride in my work to go this extra step? I'm clearly not worried about my customers knowing that I correct flaws. I'm posting this for the world to see & it's not in one way going to deter anybody from buying a cue. I'm confident about that. If this were my cue and had an issue such as this, i'd explain the hold-up to my customer & explain how I plan to remedy the issue. In 90% of the cases, the people are intrigued and fascinated with my technique because they usually have no intimate idea of how cues are built or in such cases, how things are corrected when it goes bad. The other 10% doesn't even care one way or the other because they just want the cue.
The bottom line is that we are cuemakers. We are also problem solving technicians, artists, and engineers. Above all else, we are humans, and regularly make mistakes. Whether it's our fault or the fault of the material, things go bad. What the buyers do is order a cue that will play well, look nice & last them forever. What they get is exactly that. So why should they look down on us for making things as humanly perfect as possible? That void isn't going to cause the cue to play bad or give the player splinters. It's aesthetic. The cuemaker wanted advice on how to make it look nicer for the buyer. I told him how i'd do it. Why is that something a customer shouldn't see? I mean seriously, explain this to me. No ego, no BS, no nonsense, just a clear & understandable explanation is all i'd like, if that's possible, please.
I build Sugartree cues. In every cue I build, there is at least one flaw that requires special attention. Yes, every cue. It might be points that have a void, points that are slightly uneven, a void in a ringpack, some tearout in figured wood, etc. But each cue has it's own unique challenges. Over the years I have learned how to remedy & correct these issues. They are not all preventable or else i'd be a perfect cuemaker. So I have to correct them. I don't rebuild a cue over a minor flaw like a void or chipout in a point that I can easily correct before applying finish. Why would I? When I make a correction, it's done so that it's invisible and the outcome looks as if there was never an issue.
Why should my customers find fault in this? Shouldn't they instead be happy that I am knowledgeable enough and have enough pride in my work to go this extra step? I'm clearly not worried about my customers knowing that I correct flaws. I'm posting this for the world to see & it's not in one way going to deter anybody from buying a cue. I'm confident about that. If this were my cue and had an issue such as this, i'd explain the hold-up to my customer & explain how I plan to remedy the issue. In 90% of the cases, the people are intrigued and fascinated with my technique because they usually have no intimate idea of how cues are built or in such cases, how things are corrected when it goes bad. The other 10% doesn't even care one way or the other because they just want the cue.
The bottom line is that we are cuemakers. We are also problem solving technicians, artists, and engineers. Above all else, we are humans, and regularly make mistakes. Whether it's our fault or the fault of the material, things go bad. What the buyers do is order a cue that will play well, look nice & last them forever. What they get is exactly that. So why should they look down on us for making things as humanly perfect as possible? That void isn't going to cause the cue to play bad or give the player splinters. It's aesthetic. The cuemaker wanted advice on how to make it look nicer for the buyer. I told him how i'd do it. Why is that something a customer shouldn't see? I mean seriously, explain this to me. No ego, no BS, no nonsense, just a clear & understandable explanation is all i'd like, if that's possible, please.
Much ado about nothing.
That's my point. It's no big deal. But on AZB, a guy can have his integrity as a cuemaker brought into question over such nonsense. What's up with the elitism mood of this forum over the last year or so? What gives? I sure hope the next year is a freindlier mood than this last year.
Like Shakespeare, it makes for good drama.
Like Shakespeare, man is master over his own destiny.
My father was a super carpenter. It never ceased to amaze me at the things my dad could see in his minds eye and make appear like magic out of wood and nails. what was equally amazing was how he could build around things and cover up either natural mistakes or his own and you'd never know unless he'd show you where they were.
My father was a super carpenter. It never ceased to amaze me at the things my dad could see in his minds eye and make appear like magic out of wood and nails. what was equally amazing was how he could build around things and cover up either natural mistakes or his own and you'd never know unless he'd show you where they were.
Yep!
This is also the reason skilled carpenters like really good finishers!! I cannot count the times I have been are asked or expected to "fix" something. I do not even want to go into drywall finshing!!!! I have seen it hung with roofing nails before!! Good Post, BTW great carpenters and cabinet builders are hard to find for sure. Interestingly Frank Stellman {Sailor Cues} son Kelly owns a custom cabinet shop in southern Wi...
Dan
This is also the reason skilled carpenters like really good finishers!! I cannot count the times I have been are asked or expected to "fix" something. I do not even want to go into drywall finshing!!!! I have seen it hung with roofing nails before!! Good Post, BTW great carpenters and cabinet builders are hard to find for sure. Interestingly Frank Stellman {Sailor Cues} son Kelly owns a custom cabinet shop in southern Wi...
Dan
I'm guessing that you're not a CM. My first clue was the nature of your first post because a CM would have been right out front trying to help the OP, not exercising his personal moral code to pass judgment. The OP has a client that's getting 'antcy' for his cue but he's run into a small glitch. It's not a big deal, it's easily addressed. Starting over isn't an option, nor should it be. A fix was prescribed and even without seeing the cue, I have every reason to believe that it will work.
My second clue was your statement : "No doubt the void was noticed before the forearm was joined to the handle." That's not how cues are built and how could you know beyond doubt that the 'void' was there before the forearm was attached to the wrap handle? The forearm is attached to the handle while the cue is still oversize. Then, depending on the builder's chain of processes, there is a 'true-up' pass followed by several tapering passes. It sounds like the glitch made itself known during one of his final passes. But I digress and this is not about teaching someone how to build cues.
In the past 10 yrs I've had cues in for service from just about every major builder known. I'm not about to start 'telling tales outta school' but I assure you that every single cue has had a flaw to it. 99.99% of people looking at the cue would never see it. That's testament to how well these major builders have learned to counter the irregularities that we face on a daily basis.
As CMs, we strive for perfection in every cue we build (and the cues we repair). Perfection is a goal that we strive for but in our hearts we know that perfection is a goal never to be achieved. Perfection does not exist.