Why Did They Settle On Maple?

[CuesDirectly]

Osage Orange would probably be good for cues except that the tree naturally grows crooked more often than knot. Damn near impossible to find straight grain.


I have lots of it with very tight and straight grain, zero defects. I have made many shafts from Maple, Purpleheart and Ash, can't wait to try the Osage.

Some of the wood is local and the rest is Argentine Osage Orange.

 

[Cuebuddy]

Osage Orange would probably be good for cues except that the tree naturally grows crooked more often than knot. Damn near impossible to find straight grain.

Yet another reason why maple is ideal, because of reliable straight grain wood. Hugely important in the prevention of warpage.

You are correct the trees in the Midwest are tough to get longer pieces of lumber out of them but not impossible. I have used it on several shafts on my mini cues because the color goes well with certain woods I use in the Butts.

The yellow color leeches out of the wood when I raised the grain before my final sanding. I love working with this wood it has similar turning characteristics of pink ivory.

These trees were all over eastern Nebraska when I was a kid, nearly impossible to climb due to their "world class thorns".

 

[Ched]

All I know is my experiments with balsa didn't go well.

I say yep
that gets rep

 

[barrymuch90]

I enjoyed reading this thread and some of you guys truly might be geniuses especially in this specific topic and I am very far from educated in the diff types of wood or any cue building but my playing cue is a dan Dicola and one of the main reasons the shafts and cue together feels great is this particular Lakewood shaft. Does anyone have some info on that idk if there are diff types of Lakewood but yea any info would be appreciated.

 

[Johnny Rosato]

Mr Rambow told me in 1965 Maple was used because of the consistent hardness of the grain.....he also said the exotic woods used in the butt prior to his patented internal balance system (that also centered the mass making a Rambow feel much lighter than it is.....I was just in Charleston having tips replace and the shop in Ladson guessed the weight at 14 or 15 when in fact it weighed in at 18.75) was how cues were balanced. Not nearly as good as his system.

Any repairman that don't know almost 19oz from 14oz hasn't handled enough cues to work on mine!

 

[WHSII]

Just an FYI,

I am in Kentucky, and all our surrounding states, they have had a bug, called an "Ash Borer" that inflict our Ash Trees.

Unless the Ash were treated, they are now dead.

This happened three or four years ago, when hunting, you see all the Ash with bark falling off, and they get brittle. It is not uncommon to see thirty inch Ash trees that are broken in half from the wind, 15 feet above the ground.

Ash might go the way of Chestnut in America.

There are restrictions on transporting fire wood across state lines...

WH

 

[J0HN0]

Hello,
From the original question I think (for what that's worth) that as per some of the earlier posts a lot is down to the availability of Ash & Maple respectively coupled to the fact that they're "right" for the task at hand.

On the more unusual timbers front I seem to remember reading about a guy called J.P Mannock making snooker cues and using Pear wood for shafts, apparently Pear is a great timber to use and has some "non stick" qualities but needs longer splices than Ash or Maple for extra support.

Mastercraft in the UK who made my most recent Pool cue (and made it rather nicely, Thanks Dave) were ageing some Pear shafts when I last visited them, I was sorely tempted to get one made into a Pool cue (just to be different) but I've already got a few more cues that I can play with and didn't want to "swap horse mid stream" on the cue I'd already ordered, but may be a possibility for the future...

Best regards,

 

[buckets]

same reason they use ash in Europe

there's a ton of maple in America

 

[garczar]

'Cause ash makes crappy syrup.