Who makes the blanks for Tascarella cues?

R

RingKing

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My understanding is that Pete took over George's shop after he past on, and he has carried on the style and of Bushka's cues. Knowing that Bushka did not make his own full spliced blanks, I was wondering if Pete does, or if not who makes his blanks.
 
Pete makes his own blanks, both short splice and full splice, unless he is doing a titlist conversion. I have never heard anything to the contrary.
 
spliced said:
Pete makes his own blanks, both short splice and full splice, unless he is doing a titlist conversion. I have never heard anything to the contrary.
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I am looking at a few Tascarella cues for sale on-line. I really want a full spliced cue. I am guessing if it does not say full spliced in the description then it likely is not.

Any idea what percentage of Pete's cues are full vs. short spliced?
 
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RingKing said:
My understanding is that Pete took over George's shop after he past on, and he has carried on the style and of Bushka's cues. Knowing that Bushka did not make his own full spliced blanks, I was wondering if Pete does, or if not who makes his blanks.
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Pete Tascarella (and now with Pete Jr.) have been making their own blanks for almost the entire time the shop has been in business.

The only time they did not make their own blanks was when Pete Sr. first started putting cues together, using Szamboti and Spain blanks. But these were only a few cues.

As part of the equipment purchase, Pete received all of George's notes on building his cues as well as several cues and components in various stage of build (these weren't offered to other people trying to buy the shop stuff). This also included unturned Gus Szamboti glued/banded blanks.

Pete's brother in law was some kind of machinist who built the first Tascarella fixtures in order to make blanks way the hell back then before 99.99% of all cuemakers even started thinking about sniffing the wood glue. Photos of the Szamboti pre-turned blanks have been published. I think most people who have a desire and talent to build cues could figure out a process of blank-making (following the process is a whole different story) if armed with the notes and blanks in both turned and unturned stage.

There is absolutely zero reason to believe that Pete Tascarella wasn't building his own blanks early in the process.

He will build a cue with a John Davis blank, but with caveats as the current Davis blanks do not fit his cue specifications. The Tascarellas have been making their own full-splice blanks for quite some time as well. {edit: no idea how many are out there as they don't make many cues to begin with}

Freddie <~~~ wonders what jealous cuemakers continue to spread the falsehood
 
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Cornerman said:
Pete Tascarella (and now with Pete Jr.) have been making their own blanks for almost the entire time the shop has been in business.

The only time they did not make their own blanks was when Pete Sr. first started putting cues together, using Szamboti and Spain blanks. But these were only a few cues.

As part of the equipment purchase, Pete received all of George's notes on building his cues as well as several cues and components in various stage of build (these weren't offered to other people trying to buy the shop stuff). This also included unturned Gus Szamboti glued/banded blanks.

Pete's brother in law was some kind of machinist who built the first Tascarella fixtures in order to make blanks way the hell back then before 99.99% of all cuemakers even started thinking about sniffing the wood glue. Photos of the Szamboti pre-turned blanks have been published. I think most people who have a desire and talent to build cues could figure out a process of blank-making (following the process is a whole different story) if armed with the notes and blanks in both turned and unturned stage.

There is absolutely zero reason to believe that Pete Tascarella wasn't building his own blanks early in the process.

He will build a cue with a John Davis blank, but with caveats as the current Davis blanks do not fit his cue specifications. The Tascarellas have been making their own full-splice blanks for quite some time as well. {edit: no idea how many are out there as they don't make many cues to begin with}

Freddie <~~~ wonders what jealous cuemakers continue to spread the falsehood
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Thanks for the good info! I would love to own one of the early Spain or Szamboti blank Tascarella cues.
 
RingKing said:
Thanks for the good info! I would love to own one of the early Spain or Szamboti blank Tascarella cues.
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To follow up, I checked my notes:

There were a handful (~10)in the first few years (he wasn't going at it full bore early on) that would be completely indistinguishable from a Balabushka as he used the same everything as George had spelled out. He then switched to brown phenolic and then to signing his name again pretty early in the grand scheme of things. There should be some with phenolic with no signature because even the brown phenolic cues were being mistaken for Balabushkas (that's why he started signing them). Those would be a specially nice find, IMO.

Good luck,

Freddie
 
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