What makes a great cue better than a good cue ...?

WilleeCue

WilleeCue

The Barefoot Cuemaker
Silver Member
Lets do away with the design work, fancy woods, name reconition and concentrate on just the playability and quality.

Lets take for example a plain maple forearm, joined to a plain handle, with plain maple butt sleeve. Black rings and a Linen wrap.
Not a very fancy cue and one any cue maker could build.

Granted sloppy joint work, wobble, buzz, and all the other easily detected flaws would eliminate the defective cues in an instant.

But what about the ones with good joints, good materials, and assembled by time tested methods well known by the craft.
Would there be really much difference in the hit and feel of these cues made by different cue makers?
Is there such a difference in quality or construction that without a name on them could anyone tell who made them?
If you cant see or feel a difference ... is there any?

I think this would be a real cue build off challenge.
A plain maple cue with no inlays and plain black rings.
3/8 x 10 flat faced joint with plain black joint rings.
Black phenolic butt cap.
Just a linen wrap of black with white spec.
No ID marks of any type by the maker.
The cues would look very much the same.
Then let players at several expos rate and comment on them about playability and quality.
There could be an identifying number on each cue so that only a few people would know who made which cue.

What would this prove? ... I dont know ... probably not worth the time and effort anyway. Just a thought.
 
Things are not always equal

It would confirm your belief regarding this matter. Your cues hit as good as any made.
 
i thought thats what the last cue build off was supposed to be but the participants didnt adhear.

anyway, Once you get past all the other stuff, its basically down to tip, ferulle, shaft taper and quality of material used. i would say what makes a great cue better than a good cue is the subjective opinion of the person describing it.

if a basic cue is made at 20 oz, with a balance point around 16-17" with a fat 13+ mm super stiff taper, ivorine ferule and hard tip, i'm gonna think that cue is junk because thats not what i like, but someone else may love it.

all else being equal, the only thing left to compare is point evenness and roundness, veneeres, inlays, exotic woods, name recognition, and things of the such.
 
That's exactly what the build-off was about. Only ONE participant didn't adhere to the rules. In fact, 3 builders wussied out of sending a cue after committing to doing so. Everybody who builds cues & knows what AZB is had the chance to participate. Fact is, we couldn't even get a full field. So point being, speculate all you'd like but unless you manned up to find out for yourself, you probably aren't ready for the truth.

I don't mean that to be rude. It's just that this kind of question comes up more often than not & it's always left to speculation. The last time we decided screw it let's find out for real, and we did. Funny thing is, the most opinionated & popular builders in the ATCM never participated. I guess it could be said that some things are better off left unknown. People would rather talk about it & give opinions about it than actually put their feet in the fire & see what they could learn by actual testing. I learned a lot by reading the reviews. It gave me a very different insight on the market, a clear pattern that didn't surprise me but was neat to observe. Only in one instance did I question the legitimacy of the tests and I got a strong feeling that the cue numbers were mixed up. Otherwise, all other tests were pretty much within personal preference of hit & feel. And like I said before, if you didn't participate then you probably weren't ready to know. Just keep speculating. It seems to be a popular topic full of opinions.
 
qbilder said:
That's exactly what the build-off was about. Only ONE participant didn't adhere to the rules. In fact, 3 builders wussied out of sending a cue after committing to doing so. Everybody who builds cues & knows what AZB is had the chance to participate. Fact is, we couldn't even get a full field. So point being, speculate all you'd like but unless you manned up to find out for yourself, you probably aren't ready for the truth.

I don't mean that to be rude. It's just that this kind of question comes up more often than not & it's always left to speculation. The last time we decided screw it let's find out for real, and we did. Funny thing is, the most opinionated & popular builders in the ATCM never participated. I guess it could be said that some things are better off left unknown. People would rather talk about it & give opinions about it than actually put their feet in the fire & see what they could learn by actual testing. I learned a lot by reading the reviews. It gave me a very different insight on the market, a clear pattern that didn't surprise me but was neat to observe. Only in one instance did I question the legitimacy of the tests and I got a strong feeling that the cue numbers were mixed up. Otherwise, all other tests were pretty much within personal preference of hit & feel. And like I said before, if you didn't participate then you probably weren't ready to know. Just keep speculating. It seems to be a popular topic full of opinions.
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Sorry, first I heard about it was when it was all over.
I do contract work 6 months out of the year and am away from my home.
Fact is I have not heard much about it since I came back home in May.
Can you link me?
Did a search on "cue build off" got 1000 hits on the word "build".
If you do another I WILL build a cue for you and send it.
You got the WilleeCue promise.
 
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WilleeCue said:
Sorry, first I heard about it was when it was all over.
I do contract work 6 months out of the year and am away from my home.
Fact is I have not heard much about it since I came back home in May.
Can you link me?
Did a search on "cue build off" got 1000 hits on the word "build".
If you do another I WILL build a cue for you and send it.
You got the WilleeCue promise.
Click to expand...

No biggie. It went relatively well with the exception of last minute wussies afraid of sending a cue. That put a crunch on everybody who actually were involved or contributed. But we made it work in the end.

If you are interested in this, then you should organize your own & do another one. You can find the faults in our build-off & make the next one better. Not to my surprise, all of the testers were honest & took good care of the cues, so trust shouldn't be a real issue. The only thing I really didn't like, besides the obvious chickens, was that some of the testers didn't give any feedback. They got the cues, were allowed to try various cues from various builders, then renegged on their end of the bargain which was give a thorough & honest report. I'm sure you could find some other things to tweak & change that could make it better than we did. But what we did is prove it can be done and we laid the groundwork with proven results. It wasn't perfect but was definitely something to build on.

Like I said, it's the only way to stop the speculation, especially from the cuemakers. If they don't ante up & put their opinions to the test, then their opinions aren't worth the wasted breath of giving them. Like the saying goes, put up or shut up. Last time, there was a lot of shut up and the put up came from some unexpected places. My hat's off to those who followed through & weren't afraid of truth.
 
I didn't know about the first build off until it was to late for me to get a cue together. I would gladly " put my best foot forward" if there were another build off evaluation and I knew about it so as to have enough time to get the required cue together.
 
I have been making cue a pretty long time & I have to admit that I can not explain this one. The cue I play with is Fiddleback Maple with a Coco handle. It is one of the best playing cues, that I have ever made. On the other hand I made a cue for my Dad, out of Bacote (one of my favorite woods), & a Maple handle. It has a leather wrap & has no feed back or feeling at all. IT IS DEAD. Beautiful, but DEAD. I have no clue...JER
 
BLACKHEARTCUES said:
I have been making cue a pretty long time & I have to admit that I can not explain this one. The cue I play with is Fiddleback Maple with a Coco handle. It is one of the best playing cues, that I have ever made. On the other hand I made a cue for my Dad, out of Bacote (one of my favorite woods), & a Maple handle. It has a leather wrap & has no feed back or feeling at all. IT IS DEAD. Beautiful, but DEAD. I have no clue...JER
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Now we're getting somewhere. There absolutely are differences in cues, even within the realm of a single builder. If you build cues that have differences, it's not a stretch to think there's differences in cues built by different builders. You & I could build a cue exactly to the same specs & they'd likely have noticeable differences in feel and playability. The build-off cues proved that. But still, lots of people like to think there's no difference from one cue to the next so long as they are all solidly constructed with good wood. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have no doubt that the bocote cue was built just as solid as any cue you build and the wood was as good as any wood you use. Fact is, cues have personalities. We instil in them the values we want them to possess just like our parents did us, but it doesn't mean they'll turn out exactly the way we plan. And builders get known for certain types of qualities & players looking for those qualities go after that builder's cues.

Nobody is saying one cuemaker's cues hit better than another. We all build cues the way we think they should be built because we are also players & hopefully have a clue. You might play soft stroked safety battles a lot where I might play firm stop & draw shots a lot, and we build our cues to fit the style. Unless you are customizing your specs to fit each player's request, most of your cues will have a personality that mimics your own. The more buyers whom that personality fits determines how in demand your cues will be, within reason. That's why players test different cues & say, "this cue isn't for me but that one fits perfect". It's not really rocket science or even all that mysterious. Our cues are as different as we are, and all have their own strengths & weaknesses like we do.

Jerry, the post wasn't meant to be directed at you. It's just that you are the one that brought up the first sensible scenario to discuss, rather the broad subject of the thread. My post was general, just using your statment to build off of. Hope you don't mind.
 
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Qbuilder & Blackheart have a good point about personality of a cue.years back i did a test build of two cues.they where twins.the shaft wood came from the same board, across the same section.did the same with the butt wood.turned everything to base diam,then put them away for two years.pulled the stock after two years and did the semi cuts during the month of august.i finished the first cue out in december and the second in june.did this to get the winter and summer move in.the winter cue is a stiffer hit than the summer one.the summer has a sweet play to it.i keep the summer and sold the winter.i did twin cues and got two differant personalities.been playing with it going on 15 years now.

bill
 
vasilios said:
Qbuilder & Blackheart have a good point about personality of a cue.years back i did a test build of two cues.they where twins.the shaft wood came from the same board, across the same section.did the same with the butt wood.turned everything to base diam,then put them away for two years.pulled the stock after two years and did the semi cuts during the month of august.i finished the first cue out in december and the second in june.did this to get the winter and summer move in.the winter cue is a stiffer hit than the summer one.the summer has a sweet play to it.i keep the summer and sold the winter.i did twin cues and got two differant personalities.been playing with it going on 15 years now.

bill
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Wild guess.
The better hitting one had a better handle wood.
 
I think the difference in a great playing cue and good cue all depends on the player, their skill level, and style of play. My main gig is cue repair, and I've built less than 20 cues from scratch. The buildoff had it's good points as well as bad. It helped to get some of the makers names out and from some of the testers, we got some constructive, usable feedback. From others that tested the cues, not so much. I've made alot of changes in my techniques over the last year, some due to feedback from the build-off and others just from learning more as I work.

It doesn't matter who builds the cue, As long as it's built solid. Some players are gonna love it and proclaim it and the builder the Greatest. Others that play with the same cue will think the cue is a turd. We build the best quality cue that we can and hope that it can help someone enjoy this great game more.
 
Attention to details and little luck is what makes a good cue a great playing cue.

But what makes a good cue a great cue in the eyes of the public is mostly hype. A dealer takes on a brand and talks it up. Or a well known player talks it up and everyone starts to believe the hype. Enough hype gets spread that it starts to be public opinion and then it becomes pretty much a fact in people's minds.

I know some cuemaker's cues that play fairly average on the norm, with that special lucky one coming out once in a while and people claim these cuemakers are some of the best in the world. That is because the people that got the lucky cues talks it up. And the dealers talked them up and those that got the average playing cues would never publically say so for fear of ridicule, or maybe they just don't know their cues only play average.
 
I picture a 'top' cue maker looking through a rack of 50 shaft blanks (that they made!), and throwing away 30-40 of them for not being good enough. Having rack after rack of shaft wood, taking little cuts every few months, always checking quality, and never afraid to 'thin the herd'. Letting nothing out the door that doesn't meet standards, both for construction AND play quality.

I also believe the butt end, if it's solid, determines not much more than the balance point and final weight.

-s
 
As for hype, I don't believe it. It goes only so far and is good for only a few cues before a builder either upholds the standard or doesn't. I don't believe pool players are afraid to say anything negative, nor are they so ignorant as to not know a good cue from a not so good cue. I simply disagree with it. I'm only a good B player & I can tell the difference. I could tell the difference when I was a weak C-player. Why would I have any doubt others can tell the difference, too? Blaming "great" cues on the masses of buyers being ignorant instead of yourself because they know something you don't believe to be true, isn't a very solid argument. The only issue I see with opinionated buyers is a lack of experience in some cases. They hype up builders & claim them to be the best before they have actually played with a large number of other cues. You see it all the time in comparison threads. Somebody wants to know the difference between two cues & there's a dozen guys who have only played with one of them hyping the one they know as the best. That's ignorance. But the majority of buyers are experienced with many cues & do know the differences. We'll have to agree to disagree.

As for the butt of a cue, thinking it only affects the weight & balance of a cue is not true. We've been down that road lots of times before in this forum & it's a dead horse. Everybody's entitled to opinion but that is one common opinion that to me really makes no sense. No knowledgeable cuemaker I know believes it, and with my own experiences there's no way anybody could convince me otherwise. I'm probably even in the minority of thinking the butt of a cue is AT LEAST half of what gives a cue it's personality. One thing I tell people who believe that is to take the bumper out of their cue & go play with it. It'll be like an entirely different cue. And the bumper is the farthest thing away from the tip and considered to be the most insignificant. If the bumper matters that much, it's makes little sense to think all the other butt components don't matter.
 
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