Woods for cue making?

muskyed

muskyed

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
As some of you may have seen my other posts on my upgraded lathe I purchased, and my desire to try and make a cue, I went out in the shop to see what woods I had laying around.
Found some I had purchased many years ago at a woodturning convention and was wondering if they were usefull for any parts in my cue making quest. Most were wax covered, but are actually quite dry at this point. I did cut a piece of Beefwood and square it up to do some test cuts. It is really heavy, but not sure it's actually beefwood after looking it up. Also have lots of other woods that I'm not positive in what they are.
I'm probably going to order some 18" long pieces also to try.
Some of the marked woods are, katalax, shedua, cebil, beefwood?, jobillo/goncalo, alves, plus many other unmarked woods.
So, I was just wondering on your thoughts on any of these woods?
I do realize they will need to dry somemore after some initial cutting. I'm not in any hurry.
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What is your objective?

Build a better cue?
Build a prettier cue?
Have fun in the shop? "After the cue is built i'll probably start another one 'cause i just like to learn new things & work in the shop?"
"I want to build a player that i will use 'cause i have some ideas about how it will suit me. Probably won't build any more if it works ok?"
"Realistically, all my projects are just an excuse to buy more tools, and it looks like cue building would enable that jones for a while?"

Full splice cues, or cues assembled with A & B joints?

No doubt you have read every post in the gallery? (or at least looked at the pictures :) )

Cue & Case Gallery

This is the place to post pics of your cues. Are you proud of what you shoot with? Show us all what you have.
forums.azbilliards.com
Notice all the nice looking cues made of unconventional materials. More than a few made from pallets.

The #1 thing to learn in cue building is stability.
After that it gets complex since a cue is a tool or an instrument.
However, if you can attain #1, cues can be built out of nearly any reasonably solid wood and a number of non-wood materials as well.
Of course these days, cues can even be made out of wood that alone would be fairly soft and light, or that would be weak (burls) if it is stabilized with a plastic product such as cactus juice.
Most butts are made of fairly dense woods, but don't get hung up on expensive or exotic lumber until you have a vision for what you want to make with it or why you want to use it.. Hard maple, Osage orange, even black locust could be cheap domestic material to experiment with. About the only exotic you might "need" to have on hand in decent size is purple heart, in straight grain. If bought as dry lumber in planks, it is one of the more stable woods & is good for shafts, for cores, as well as butt wood at a relatively low price.

Get some wood that is pretty enough that you would own it if a successful cue emerges, but not so expensive or difficult to acquire that you fear to take every step making that first cue. I made my first shafts in the 80's to fit to butts people gave me. Made my first butt out of lumber (cabriuvia) from off-rips (scrap) from lumber i was manufacturing flooring out of because i started playing pool again maybe 15 years ago 'cause i'm a cheapazz and did not want to spend money on a cue. :)

Just grab a hunk of cheap but solid/dense wood and turn a cue out of it. Put the ferule and your choice of joint pin; maybe a butt sleeve. Include a (delrin? or other?) butt cap and bumper. Eventually, the solid butt will probably warp on you, maybe just a little maybe a lot. But you'll have fun, get to try it out, and learn from there.
 
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Pretty much for me it would be just the challenge and desire to make a decent cue. Would like to make one or two a year.
My player, I doubt it, but you never know.
I really like my Schon I use now, then there is that DZ I picked up a year or two ago, not sure what I'm going to do with that. I would like to have one or more to just shoot some balls with now and then and be proud to say I made that.
I do have some ideas on woods, but I'm also trying to end up with specs in the range that I like.
So I'll probably just play with some woods in the shop at first to get a feel for it.
I don't plan on making shafts and will buy those or just use some extra I have laying around, I have quite a few.
I'm not in any hurry so will probably just start with some wood on the shop to practice on and hopefully next winter make one I'd actually like to keep.
For me this is just another form of woodworking I have yet to try.
 
Every wood has it's pecularities in terms of working it, finishing and so on. I would read up on wood database, it's a great resource.
Most of the woods you got there can be used for cue building, the sizes you have there is quite odd though.
 
muskyed said:
As some of you may have seen my other posts on my upgraded lathe I purchased, and my desire to try and make a cue, I went out in the shop to see what woods I had laying around.
Found some I had purchased many years ago at a woodturning convention and was wondering if they were usefull for any parts in my cue making quest. Most were wax covered, but are actually quite dry at this point. I did cut a piece of Beefwood and square it up to do some test cuts. It is really heavy, but not sure it's actually beefwood after looking it up. Also have lots of other woods that I'm not positive in what they are.
I'm probably going to order some 18" long pieces also to try.
Some of the marked woods are, katalax, shedua, cebil, beefwood?, jobillo/goncalo, alves, plus many other unmarked woods.
So, I was just wondering on your thoughts on any of these woods?
I do realize they will need to dry somemore after some initial cutting. I'm not in any hurry.
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Do they actually dry if they are wax covered??
 
I started out "with a desire to try to make a cue".
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I started from the other direction - had to use exotics and semi-exotics for millwork and furniture, needed something to make out of the scrap.
I learned to make full splice 4 and 6 point joints on legs designed for furniture; although that was partially intentional on my part to subsidize tooling up for cues. After i started thinking about cues, i did throw occasional exotics on the pile "to save for later" when buying loads of more common lumber for jobs at the time. Only wish i had had a couple that required Brazilian rosewood, like some of my buddies. One of the wildest repair jobs i did a few years ago was a floor from the turn of the last century that was probably 2,000 sf of T & G wideboard fiddleback koa. My repair inventory was about 10 sq ft for splicing in dutchmen - in the event, they did not let me use it, they just wanted it consolidated, re-plugged, and epoxy/sawdust mix for filling larger damage as a "conservation" mandate.
 
Yes they will, just takes substantially longer. Wax will still breath, but some woods are quite heavily covered and will really slow down the drying. The one square I cut off had three fresh cut sides and I scraped and sanded the wax off the remaining side, then weighed it. The weight hasn't changed yet, and I have a sensitive scale, but don't plan on doing anything with it for quite a while anyway. That piece was probably purchased 10 or so years ago. The problem you can run into with a heavy wax coating is that it could spalt or just rot and be wasted. It just depends on what level of moisture the wood was when they waxed it in the first place.
These woods were all pieces that I bought cheap at the final day of turning conventions that I attended. Venders would generally mark them 40%-50% off on the final day so they didn't have to cart them home.
 
Do they actually dry if they are wax covered??
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My experience is "not within 5 - 10 years" but "maybe within 10 - 20"
Though it does depend on the wood.
Some, like heavy (thick) ebony, will crack if dried much faster without being machined smaller, though
For instance, take a solid block 6/4 x 6+" W x 18" L, if it is wet as acquired, it might or might not dry without cracks, and almost certainly will crack if dried out in only a couple years or so, without conscious controlled MC reduction. If it comes in wax, it was almost certainly not kiln dried, and it might be best to leave it (very) slowly drying until you can cut it to smaller pieces. Then let them dry slowly. This is what cue-makers face when buying turning stock. Check with a moisture meter periodically, and some wax can be scraped off when the material gets down under 12%. Maybe.

PS: see 'ed's note about possible spalting, too.
Ebony that was KD tends to have a slight floral smell over the garbage scent.
Ebony long in wax often has a strong garbage can smell. Though i never noticed a lesser physical quality to it.
:)
 
As I originally bought these for turning, I typically would have rough turned them soon after purchasing, but for some reason put them on my wood racks, and never got around to it. A couple pieces not shown have cracked as could be expected. I almost never buy wood for woodturning as for the last 25 years I have owned wooded land, and trade with others with woods I have for theirs. Also, at my last house I ate breakfast a couple days a week with a logging family that would turn me on to some nice wood and burls at times. I also used to have a woodmizer sawmill for awhile also.
When I cut blanks for woodturning I will wax the end grain, but still need to rough turn it in a couple months. Even after rough turning you still loose about 25% to cracking. So I would estimate my overall loss for woodturning woods to be 40%-50%. Used to bother me, but I don't even think about it anymore as if I need more wood, I'll just go out back and cut a tree down.
Some woods I would intentially try to get them to spalt, maple and yellow birch, but it's not easily controlled as once it starts, it goes quick and go to rot really quick at times.
 
Ssonerai said:
My experience is "not within 5 - 10 years" but "maybe within 10 - 20"
Though it does depend on the wood.
Some, like heavy (thick) ebony, will crack if dried much faster without being machined smaller, though
For instance, take a solid block 6/4 x 6+" W x 18" L, if it is wet as acquired, it might or might not dry without cracks, and almost certainly will crack if dried out in only a couple years or so, without conscious controlled MC reduction. If it comes in wax, it was almost certainly not kiln dried, and it might be best to leave it (very) slowly drying until you can cut it to smaller pieces. Then let them dry slowly. This is what cue-makers face when buying turning stock. Check with a moisture meter periodically, and some wax can be scraped off when the material gets down under 12%. Maybe.

PS: see 'ed's note about possible spalting, too.
Ebony that was KD tends to have a slight floral smell over the garbage scent.
Ebony long in wax often has a strong garbage can smell. Though i never noticed a lesser physical quality to it.
:)
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I have a lot of ebony that has been in wax a long time and pink ivory too. I have found if you just turn it round to 1.5" and set it aside cracking has not been an issue. Now take a wood like black and white ebony and good luck no matter what you do.
 
Coos Cues said:
I have a lot of ebony that has been in wax a long time and pink ivory too. I have found if you just turn it round to 1.5" and set it aside cracking has not been an issue. Now take a wood like black and white ebony and good luck no matter what you do.
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The problem I have with turning my squares round is its wasteful, ebony is way to expensive to turn to dust, that which can effectively used in a cue.
The way I process wood depends on the build but say I was building a full ebony cue, as in forearm and butt sleeve. Your forearm is only going to be 1 1/8" max diameter so there is plenty of wood to make into inlay slabs. The butt sleeve gets turned to 1 1/4", so you can saw off some there as well. I will sometimes mill my squares nice and perfect, then saw off the corners for point stock. Or you can cut a sqaure into many point blanks. With taper jigs you can make a 7/8"sqaure into 4 points.
I believe the woods we use are going to be the most important factor in the viability of the future of custom cues. The big manufactures will have to find alternatives for the precious woods to be able to build cues on mass. So my point is don't waste what you have because it is going to get increasingly difficult to acquire IMO.
 
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