Up and coming cuemakers
- Thread starter SeeR
- Start date
I don't know if he'll make it "BIG" or if he even wants to but I know of someone in SE Iowa making cues that are of TOP notch quality. I own 2 of his cues and I'll be buying my 3rd cue from him as soon as he finishes it.
No, it's not Diveney (who makes great cues) ........ but he does some work with/for Diveney.
The locals in/around the SE Iowa/Iowa City area that are very good players probably know exactly who I'm talking about but I'm not going to spill the beans here just yet. I have a feeling his name will be known well enough within 10 yrs.
Thanks for the great cues J.V. and keep up the great work.
No, it's not Diveney (who makes great cues) ........ but he does some work with/for Diveney.
The locals in/around the SE Iowa/Iowa City area that are very good players probably know exactly who I'm talking about but I'm not going to spill the beans here just yet. I have a feeling his name will be known well enough within 10 yrs.
Thanks for the great cues J.V. and keep up the great work.
Mickey your dead on! Look out for that Jon Spitz... TOOT TOOT:thumbup:
http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=242426
Here is longer thread with close to the same question
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i hope spitzter sells enough cues to get a REAL coffeeemaker someday :thumbup:
inside joke folks, jon's coffee pot only half filled my big ass coffee mug i had with me:shrug:
so filled it to the top with half and half and sugar
zooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I must make about 4 pots of that mini coffee pot every morning. You would think I would get to the store and get a big boys coffee maker. Maybe I'll get a X-mas gift this year from the wife. LOL!
jon, if santa dont bring you one,
I WILL!!!
Walmart has them for 8.97 now.......
Kevin Varney , Scott Gracio and Jim Pierce.I'm basing this on playability alone.Once some of the big boys start playing with their cues,they'll become the talk of talk when it comes to great playing cues.Don't get me wrong there's alot of great makers who I wish them all to succeed but these 3 guys have zoned in on what a cue should play like.
I just bought my first,many more to come.
Hopefully Tony Bautista can make that list sir, as for now his cue are being used by some Filipino greats like Carlo Biado-Philippine National Champion and World Champion from China, Fu Xiao Fang and Liu Sha Sha. and I quote "they like the feedback in term of feel, balance that the cue give them" hopefully he can succeed.
some local class A and B have been using this cues too.
some local class A and B have been using this cues too.
Darrin Hill
Hi,
I have watched and been behind the scenes throughout Darrin's entire career as a cue maker and I feel I am in a unique position to render my appraisal of his position relative to the status quo in our business.
For over a decade he has sold nearly 100 cues in my pool hall alone and he has evolved his end product to an elite status IMHO universally. Today he is selling to repeat customers all over the world and supports his family building cues.( A very difficult deed indeed ).
Darrin is very passionate and never stops developing and raising the bar for achieving the little extra degree of precision each time he builds a new cue, designs or builds cue making machinery. This is the spirit that I feel is the common denominator the thrusts one to Elite CM Status.
Thru the last many years I have been very lucky to be mentored by a few very intensive people in cue making and Darrin has not only been my biggest mentor and supporter but a great friend to that end.
As a pilot I learned to fly by the seat of my pants and then progressed to my instrument rating. That along with my experience in procedural adherence helped me give something back to Darrin that I know was somewhat of a pay back so to speak for my graditude.
Some years ago, I explained to him that Process Control was the thing that would tune him into the realm of perfection he was always chasing. At first he was very resistant to the notion of timing operations, tracking repeatability, and color coded tooling and working to a blueprints and step procedures for everything, no exceptions, then evaluating and making slight revisions as a rule.
You see Darrin was a great seat of the pants guy in the machine shop and in cue building because he doesn't miss a trick an is very intuitive. Since he has embraced process control for example, he has taken his full splice jigs and methods thru 3 revisions and now produces one of the most precision full spliced veneer cue blanks on the planet. His enthusiasm for the art of making cues has and continues to reach new levels because he expects that to happen, go figure. Raising the bar of expectations is one of the most important features in any program procedure.
Instead of flying by the seat of his pants, each cue he builds now has a flight plan and is guided all along the steps of the build by Air Traffic Control, his "program procedure".
To my mind's eye Darrin is in the elite status right now, the world just has to catch up to the things that are going on in Mchenry Illinois.
I have the feeling that Scott, Tony, Brent, Leon, Trent and many others who were mentioned here share the same type of passion Darrin has but I have not had the privilege to see them behind the scenes.
In the end only time will tell but if I were a betting man I would bet the farm that Darrin will be a Hall of Famer someday.
I am sure some will think this is an infomercial and I a just shilling and promoting a good friend. Well it is just that. It is because he is such a good friend that I wished to share this stuff from my heart with my peers.
Keep up the dream Darrin,
Rick
PS. Watch out for that Tony G. There must be something in the water in Portugal because he's really got that same passion.
This is Darrin's cue that tied for 2nd place for the cue of the year last year and was done on Darrin's rev. 2 jigs. He is now using rev. 3 and it is hard to believe after seeing this cue that there was room for improvement. There is always room for improvement!
Hi,
I have watched and been behind the scenes throughout Darrin's entire career as a cue maker and I feel I am in a unique position to render my appraisal of his position relative to the status quo in our business.
For over a decade he has sold nearly 100 cues in my pool hall alone and he has evolved his end product to an elite status IMHO universally. Today he is selling to repeat customers all over the world and supports his family building cues.( A very difficult deed indeed ).
Darrin is very passionate and never stops developing and raising the bar for achieving the little extra degree of precision each time he builds a new cue, designs or builds cue making machinery. This is the spirit that I feel is the common denominator the thrusts one to Elite CM Status.
Thru the last many years I have been very lucky to be mentored by a few very intensive people in cue making and Darrin has not only been my biggest mentor and supporter but a great friend to that end.
As a pilot I learned to fly by the seat of my pants and then progressed to my instrument rating. That along with my experience in procedural adherence helped me give something back to Darrin that I know was somewhat of a pay back so to speak for my graditude.
Some years ago, I explained to him that Process Control was the thing that would tune him into the realm of perfection he was always chasing. At first he was very resistant to the notion of timing operations, tracking repeatability, and color coded tooling and working to a blueprints and step procedures for everything, no exceptions, then evaluating and making slight revisions as a rule.
You see Darrin was a great seat of the pants guy in the machine shop and in cue building because he doesn't miss a trick an is very intuitive. Since he has embraced process control for example, he has taken his full splice jigs and methods thru 3 revisions and now produces one of the most precision full spliced veneer cue blanks on the planet. His enthusiasm for the art of making cues has and continues to reach new levels because he expects that to happen, go figure. Raising the bar of expectations is one of the most important features in any program procedure.
Instead of flying by the seat of his pants, each cue he builds now has a flight plan and is guided all along the steps of the build by Air Traffic Control, his "program procedure".
To my mind's eye Darrin is in the elite status right now, the world just has to catch up to the things that are going on in Mchenry Illinois.
I have the feeling that Scott, Tony, Brent, Leon, Trent and many others who were mentioned here share the same type of passion Darrin has but I have not had the privilege to see them behind the scenes.
In the end only time will tell but if I were a betting man I would bet the farm that Darrin will be a Hall of Famer someday.
I am sure some will think this is an infomercial and I a just shilling and promoting a good friend. Well it is just that. It is because he is such a good friend that I wished to share this stuff from my heart with my peers.
Keep up the dream Darrin,
Rick
PS. Watch out for that Tony G. There must be something in the water in Portugal because he's really got that same passion.
This is Darrin's cue that tied for 2nd place for the cue of the year last year and was done on Darrin's rev. 2 jigs. He is now using rev. 3 and it is hard to believe after seeing this cue that there was room for improvement. There is always room for improvement!
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