Wood Question

Webbs Billiards

Webbs Billiards

Billiards Dealer
Silver Member
I do quite a bit of wood working, but I'm not a cue maker.

I build boxes, cabinets, and display cases.

I generally use red oak, cherry, maple, and ash.

Do any cue makers use cherry for cues? When sanded at 2000 grit, cherry almost glimmers. I think it would be beautiful.
 
Webbs Billiards said:
I do quite a bit of wood working, but I'm not a cue maker.

I build boxes, cabinets, and display cases.

I generally use red oak, cherry, maple, and ash.

Do any cue makers use cherry for cues? When sanded at 2000 grit, cherry almost glimmers. I think it would be beautiful.
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Not a cuemaker either, but you would think curly cherry, quilted cherry and cherry burl would look great in a cue. I know they look great for lots of other stuff. Larry
 
I am not sure why Cherry is not used much on modern cues. It is a little light weight, but the highend pieces are very nice looking. If the Gov keeps cutting down on what woods we can import you may start seeing a lot more domestic woods being used.

With that being said, what woods could we use if there was a total ban on imported woods? We need a little heavier wood to core with to make these lighter domestic woods stable and weigh out right. What domestic wood for heavier coring could we use? I would like to see what we could come up with looks wise if only USA woods were allowed.

Apologies in advance if this hijacks the thread.
 
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Weight wise, cherry would make a cue quite light. It also has a higher tendency to split than some of the other more popular domestic cue woods. That being said, I have some figured cherry I hope to use for inlays.

Concerning heavier woods for coring, domestic Osage Orange may be a good option as well as locust. Aside from coring, dimensions could be changed to achieve weight gains. Hickory wouldn't be bad, but it better be stable. A board of hickory at the bottom of a stack will lift the whole pile if it warps.
 
cueman said:
What domestic wood for heavier coring could we use? I would like to see what we could come up with looks wise if only USA woods were allowed.
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There are several woods that come to mind that are much denser than cherry or maple. Black locust, hickory, pecan and apple are all pretty dense. Persimmon, mulberry and osage orange (hedge) are very dense and hard, and quite beautiful to look at.

Out in Utah there is lots of "mountain mahogany" and mesquite. Live oak is very dense and very strong, almost unbreakable. Desert ironwood is denser than just about any wood I can think of, even denser than most ebony, and very beautiful when simply polished without a finish. The king of density in domestic wood is Texas lignum vitae (SG is > 1.3 IIRC).

I'm sure we'd do fine with what we grow in this country, but the lure of exotic woods from distant countries is dear to our hearts - part of the mystique of finely crafted wooden articles like cues. Still, we have some pretty spectacular wood within our borders, just have to get some and play around with it to see what it can do.
 
Sloppy Pockets said:
There are several woods that come to mind that are much denser than cherry or maple. Black locust, hickory, pecan and apple are all pretty dense. Persimmon, mulberry and osage orange (hedge) are very dense and hard, and quite beautiful to look at.

Out in Utah there is lots of "mountain mahogany" and mesquite. Live oak is very dense and very strong, almost unbreakable. Desert ironwood is denser than just about any wood I can think of, even denser than most ebony, and very beautiful when simply polished without a finish. The king of density in domestic wood is Texas lignum vitae (SG is > 1.3 IIRC).

I'm sure we'd do fine with what we grow in this country, but the lure of exotic woods from distant countries is dear to our hearts - part of the mystique of finely crafted wooden articles like cues. Still, we have some pretty spectacular wood within our borders, just have to get some and play around with it to see what it can do.
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I love building with pecan, its gorgeous to me. I'm more of a wood grain kinda guy than points, vaneers or inlays.
 
Webbs Billiards said:
I love building with pecan, its gorgeous to me. I'm more of a wood grain kinda guy than points, vaneers or inlays.
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Absolutely wood grain.... I am making 3 picture frames for prints I have right now. (quilted cherry, curly maple, and leopard wood).... Here's a couple pics of some quilted and curly cherry (rough cut). Some of the frames are almost 4 ft long so it should be fun...

Enjoy... :thumbup:

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Hedge

I have a gentleman that wants a cue made out of Hedge. He saw a cue that my brother made for himself made out of Hedge and fell head over heals. It's a nice looking yellow color and does some really cool stuff when you cut the grains just right.
 
Cherry works great for pool cue parts. It is, indeed, a very light weight wood. I make quite a few break handles out of cherry.

The current rage around my area are jump/break cues that weigh less than 18 oz, but have very dense and heavy jump handles. I have found that by pairing a nice cherry break handle with a dense cocobolo or african ipe jump handle, I can achieve the desired individual component weights while keeping overall cue weight very light. Cherry machines well, and drills and taps reasonably well too. Once it is fully dry, it seems to be a stable wood that changes very little over time. I think that is one reason you see so much cherry in heirloom furniture from the last century.

I generally avoid using it as a forearm wood, though. I built a cue with a cherry forearm a few years ago. It was beautiful to look at, but I was not happy with the hit. Too soft for my personal preferences.

I have found that cherry is wonderful for inlays, handles, butt sleeves, and other less "structural" parts.

All I can say is "give it a whirl" and see if you like it. I try every different species I can get my hands on. Each and every wood has a role (or range of roles) which I find it appropriate in cue building. On the flip side of that, most every wood has several applications I would never use it for, too. Every cue builder will have different experiences and preferences, so give it a try and tell me what you think :)
 
You guys have posted some great information. Keep it coming.
Does anyone have pictures of cue butts built with USA woods besides Maple?
I am not sure if Koa should be counted as it does come from the USA but Hawaii is a long ways from the mainland. Figured Walnut is very hard to beat the looks of.
 
cueman said:
You guys have posted some great information. Keep it coming.
Does anyone have pictures of cue butts built with USA woods besides Maple?
I am not sure if Koa should be counted as it does come from the USA but Hawaii is a long ways from the mainland. Figured Walnut is very hard to beat the looks of.
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Mesquite and desert ironwood and acacia ?
I haven't built with those local woods but others have I believe.
 
There are numerous types of walnut, numerous maples, countless oaks. We have a type of oak out here that's chocolate brown like walnut, with a bright yellow sapwood. I built my personal cue out of curly chalk maple and desert scrub oak burl. Chalk maple is bright white like holly, but hard & dense like sugar maple. Desert scrub oak is chocolate color with vibrant yellow sap. The burl of it looks olive drab with brown & yellow swirls. Just in this area of the SW, there must be a couple dozen obscure hardwoods that are suitable for cues. They do not make up a majority of the forest so they aren't commercially cut, and therefore are unknown in the lumber world. In the Appalachians where I grew up, there are immense hardwood forests. Dogwood would be an awesome core wood. It's dense, heavy, hard, and stable. It's a small understory tree so it's never commercially processed.

We have countless woods that most people have never heard of. We even have a variety of rosewoods growing in Florida. I use a lot of domestic woods in my cues. I will get a pic of my cue & post, maybe today.

Mountain box elder (very hard)
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Alligator juniper
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Cats claw
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Siberian elm
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Sugar maple
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chalk maple
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Love that new log mill too.

I'm a lucky duck sometimes. I have an acquaintance that is a retired furniture refinisher. He told me that he saved me what little wood he had left in his shop. Also, he has a friend in the high end cabinet business. Apparently they use everything from maple, ebony, walnut, tulip wood etc.

They told him that they have no use for the small pieces and put them in the dumpster. He told me to come down and he would even put them in boxes for me so I'm pretty excited about that one.

Even some butt sleeve or ring billet material would make me extremely happy. But, I'm a scrounger anyway.

Amazing what a person can find in pallet wood sometimes too.
There are some nice hard woods used for the main supports.
 
qbilder, you couldnt possibly use all that wood for cues do you? Do you sell wood to other woodworkers, like furniture and guitar makers? You have a very impressive wood collection and in my opinion with so many cue makers in the market I believe the guy with the nicest wood to offer his customer is going to be on top. Thank you for showing some of those beautiful pieces.
 
i havent seen anyone mention ash, where does this fit in?
i have seen a shaft or two made from ash... or atleast i am pretty sure it was ash.
 
poolshooter74 said:
i havent seen anyone mention ash, where does this fit in?
i have seen a shaft or two made from ash... or atleast i am pretty sure it was ash.
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I posed this same question on another forum. Many european cues have ash in them.

As far as around my neck of the woods there are many woods that can be used. When I took dendrology in college, my leaf collection had over 125 species of trees I collected right here in east Texas.
 
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