Tough to say. I pointed a fellow in the right direction once, reccomended a deluxe cuesmith lathe & some neccesary tools from the local hardware store. I even gave him some sources for wood & supplies. On top of this, I taught him some in-depth techniques & methods of building. He couldn't make it work out & sold his equipment. He made ok cues & priced them cheap, but nobody would buy them. Why? Who knows. It's tricky like that.
My reccomendation would be buying a cuesmith deluxe from Hightower. Go to Lowes or Home Depot & get yourself a $99 bandsaw, $99tablesaw & $99belt sander. Get a strong shop-vac & all neccesary protective equipment such as a respirator/mask and hearing protection. Buy some shaft wood & sneaky blanks & get some basic rings & joint pins, phenolics, bumpers & weight bolts from Atlas Billiard Supply. You'll be spending minimum $5000, and will barely have enough equipment & materials to build a couple no finish plain sneakies.
Chances are good you'll fail miserably. You'll be stuck $5G, and have a basic cue shop that you hate to even look at. You'll try selling everything but nobody wants used tools, except for the lathe. You'll get 3/4 what you paid for your lathe, everything else a loss. The cues you build at first will suck. You'll get disheartened & likely quit. You might stick with it long enough to get proficient at building & then begin finishes, and possibly even learn how to do that with fair results. But will anybody buy your cues? Probably not. If they do it'll be so cheap that it's a waste of your time. Or you might get lucky & be a grand slam prodigy, but your chances of winning the lottery are better.
If you do make it, and find that your work is fair enough & people show genuine interest to the point they'll pay, then you should begin putting money away & look at buying more serious equipment. But don't count on it. Hope for the best & plan for the worst. I'm sorry to be so negative but everything is absolutely true. I do ok with my cues, but wouldn't for a minute depend on cue income to even pay my truck payment. My wife has money, and i'm a mr.mom. I survive at building cues because I can afford to maintain the hobby, not because I sell enough cues. So if you want money, rethink your decisions. If you want a possibly fun hobby, be prepared for the expenses. Again, sorry for being negative but there's no reason to sugar coat the truth. Too many guys try & too many guys fail, losing money that could have been used to get their kids into college or buy their wife that new car she's been wanting. It's a huge expense to even begin, tremendous expense to do it right.
