Wanting to get into making cues. Have questions regarding that topic.

Gravey39

Gravey39

Active member
I have a background with being a machinist for a couple years. I worked with metal lathes. I’m about to get my hands on an older metal lathe. So I’m wanting to try my hand at construction some cues as a hobby. One of the main questions that I have is what brand of epoxy is recommended for the construction of cues?

Anything else or tips/pointers that anyone has and are willing to give out some pointers would be much appreciated.
 
Grave39,
Well, be careful what you ask for!! Cue building can become an addicition costing 10's of thousands of dollars.
Epoxy selection is important, but a fairly minor part of building. In general, a clear, slow curing epoxy is recommended for best bonding. But epoxy can be used for finishing as well.
The best thing you could do for yourself would be to purchase Chris Hightower's book on cue building. It is a comprehensive overview of many of the skills and techniques involved.
You can find his book here:
https://www.cuesmith.com/the-cue-building-book-from-tree-to-tip-to-trade-show/
Have fun,
Gary
 
Many people who worked wood elsewhere prefer WEST because they've engineered it nearly fool-proof and have convenient systems such as the necessary fillers, which are reliable with wood. They also have a lot of data in their library, lots of published manuals and info, and their helpline is good. OTOH, there are other wood epoxies that cost a good bit less & may be just as good. Since using it for over 40 years on high confidence required projects, (& tend to have C units in the loft for millwork anyway) I keep paying for WEST.

AS someone else mentioned, don't get sucked into the quick setting epoxies.
Even the 1/2 hr/1hr mixes are inferior. For some reason, slow setting (at normal room temp) seems to be necessary for high strength wood epoxies. All will set faster with heat, but even there, don't overdo it. I did some experiments years ago on millwork, and heating up much past 90F during cure seemed to make the product less strong or durable.

In many cases, Titebond Extend or even type 3 is as good, and leaves a finer glue joint. For instance, in millwork, i will often use Titebond for dense wood with close fitting joints. Though for laminations and bent laminations i stick with WEST because once spread, the open time is much greater. WEST requires sanded faces & cotton flocking filler, both of which is bad for conventional glues like Titebond. Conventional glues may be even stronger than epoxy for wood-wood, but require technically more "perfect" knife-planed/machined joints. (Not sanded, best not saw cut, either)

PS, FWIW, I'm also a machinist. Still make money building custom tools, hardware, and consumable tooling, but most of my career was millwork (commercial custom woodwork, facilitated by the ability to made the tooling and mod or build the machines)
 
Grave39,
GBCues said:
Well, be careful what you ask for!! Cue building can become an addicition costing 10's of thousands of dollars.
Epoxy selection is important, but a fairly minor part of building. In general, a clear, slow curing epoxy is recommended for best bonding. But epoxy can be used for finishing as well.
The best thing you could do for yourself would be to purchase Chris Hightower's book on cue building. It is a comprehensive overview of many of the skills and techniques involved.
You can find his book here:
https://www.cuesmith.com/the-cue-building-book-from-tree-to-tip-to-trade-show/
Have fun,
Gary
Click to expand...
Just ordered the book!! Thank you. And yes I will try to be cautious lol. Was sitting around with my uncle a few months ago talking about pool cues and he made a joke about me making my own. The idea has been getting a lot more attention to it and now I’m actually looking into doing it. I’m getting my hands on an old pulley driven metal lathe that’s 40” from center points. It also has a pass through chuck. So once I find a motor to throw onto it. I’ll try my hand at turning a few cues. I’ll probably try my hand at a few spliced butts first. I have a few routers and dremals laying around. I’m thinking about making a tool holder on the post so I can make cuts with those. Kind of getting that idea from a few cue lathes that I’ve found online. I think one of the biggest challenges will be setting the lathe up so it can make that consistent taper. My idea to that is to buy a tooling rail and see if I can build something above where the piece would be and slide a router across back and fourth until desired taper. I’ve made a couple working sterling engines out of steel and brass. The tolerances on those things are insanely low. So I’m pretty confident that I can make really good splice joints. But time will tell.
 
So I see Epoxy recommended for cue building.
What was used in the old cues from 50-100 years ago that are still being played with and converted today?
Old Brunswick's would be a great example.
 
I bought a cheap set up just to do tips, that's all I even needed, welp now I have 2 lathes and a ton of supplies LoL. Once you figure out one thing then you think I wonder if I can do that, this etc and your hooked. I haven't tried a cue but definitely building up to it.

Speaking of machinist, when I was in tech school in high school learning welding a kid next door in machine shop built a complete cue out of aluminum stock. Never hit it but I'm sure it was a heck of a break cue I'm sure LoL
 
What was used in the old cues from 50-100 years ago that are still being played with and converted today?
Old Brunswick's would be a great example.
Click to expand...

To pile on, with a significant detail:
"hot" hide glue.
I still use it, sometimes mandated for government historical replication woodwork.
But it is too fast for me, for cues.
I also don't like that damp can fail it over time.

I cut up all the scrap from the gov'e job to burn in the kitchen cookstove.
Left out on the covered pile over a winter, it usuallly comes apart, looking like it was never glued.
For inlays (which i don't much do on cues, but often do for the gov'e work, you have to work fast and carefully, or the parts will shrink when dry, if they pick up too much moisture during the glue-up process. OTOH on some historical work, that can lead to it looking very original.

HHG probably makes the most invisible glue line, if your joinery is up to it.

There's still egyptian & other old stuff, from hot dry climates, & plenty of antiques that is still glued tight as a fiddle.
HHG being also the still used luthiers glue for stiffness, strength, extreme longevity, yet ease to melt and repair.

smt
 
Speaking of machinist, when I was in tech school in high school learning welding a kid next door in machine shop built a complete cue out of aluminum stock
Click to expand...

My esthetic tends to be late 1920's/30's Deco.
I sort of imagine wanting to make an aluminum/phenolic, or aluminum/amber Ultem1000 full splice butt. :)
It would only be cool as a FS.
Too many other projects first, though.

smt
 
The first thing is to realize that both of your questions have been asked here many times. Both answers have been given many times.

The second thing to realize is that most of the information comes from the same place.

Do your own research. Create your own methods for building cues.
 
DeeDeeCues said:
The first thing is to realize that both of your questions have been asked here many times. Both answers have been given many times.

The second thing to realize is that most of the information comes from the same place.

Do your own research. Create your own methods for building cues.
Click to expand...
Regardless of how many times it’s been asked. It’s never a bad thing to bring it up again and ask the same thing. You get new people and new outlooks on the same material. Which is always a joy. And if you don’t find joy doing it or talking about it, you’ll never be good at it. Now on my own research, I do a lot of that probably a few hours every single day and usually most of my weekends if I have the free time to do so. I would also like to figure out my own methods for building cues. The thing is most new ideas come from twisting and transforming someone else’s idea. I’m going into this with never turning a cue before. I’ve turned spindles for stairs and stuff like that. So getting a baseline to start off with is always the best. Rinse and repeat until I figure out which one that I like and then I’ll start thinking of ways to create my own method.
 
I was at the local Woodcraft a while back and started talking to one of the younger guys there. Turns out he used to play pool and now he does a lot of lathe work (wood lathe) and was talking about building a cue. The moment I started talking segmented handles, coring, weight/balance, joints, etc. he knew he was in over his head. A week later and I brought a few of my cues in to show him and he was very impressed with the detail of how cues are made.

Not sure what you did other than those few years on a metal lathe but most definitely read that book forward and backwards :)
 
Gravey39 said:
Regardless of how many times it’s been asked. It’s never a bad thing to bring it up again and ask the same thing. You get new people and new outlooks on the same material. Which is always a joy. And if you don’t find joy doing it or talking about it, you’ll never be good at it. Now on my own research, I do a lot of that probably a few hours every single day and usually most of my weekends if I have the free time to do so. I would also like to figure out my own methods for building cues. The thing is most new ideas come from twisting and transforming someone else’s idea. I’m going into this with never turning a cue before. I’ve turned spindles for stairs and stuff like that. So getting a baseline to start off with is always the best. Rinse and repeat until I figure out which one that I like and then I’ll start thinking of ways to create my own method.
Click to expand...

Agreed and this is a topic that could be asked 1,000,000 different ways and answered 1,000,000 different ways.

Now, when they ask what joint pin a manufacturer uses, that's a totally different response :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top