Bridge Cues

[itsnoteasy]

i
During the 90's I had cues made in various places around the world, often the timber was from the same forests. I could look at a cue and recognise the wood and where it came from and have a 90% chance of getting it right. I could spot the fine timbers that made the butt and know whereabouts in the tree it came from.

Ebony from Africa was almost pure black in the centre of the tree and as it was taken nearer to the bark it got paler in colour and would contain creamy stripes within the black. Very close to the bark it would look like Rosewood (dark brown) with some thin stripes of black. Rosewood got it's name from the smell of the sawdust when it was sawn, it had a hint of Rose fragrance. Both Ebony and Rosewood are now protected and can no longer be sold for commercial purposes.

Canada provided most of the Maple cues and by looking at it, the wider the grain lines are the more southerly facing the tree is, and If I knew the forest I could tell whereabouts in the forest it came from. The better woods had a very close grain, meaning that the tree was North facing and got less sunshine and more colder weather, this made the timber very hard and made the best cues, the same could be said for the Ash cues with English Ash being a good one to choose. The gap between the lines of the grain is the annual growth rate of the tree so when a cue length is cut from top to bottom through the grain, one can see the annual growth for a few years of the tree's life.

Filipino Ash was usually wide grained with the temperature being higher, but this made the cues warp easier, so strict conditions were required for the makers to use well chosen Ash for my cheaper range.

Reading through this I bet you have fallen asleep by the time you got to "Africa"

All the best

Anthony

I love all this stuff . Unfortunately my knowledge of cues ends at ,one end should be a bit more pointy than the other end.