HELP NEEDED, In the market for a new hand crafted personalised professional cue.....

[old school]

Craftsman has two tables,Chesworths has a table,Green Baize may have a table.There is no substitute for taking a cue for a " turn around the tables". The three aforementioned companys have plenty of cues for you to try ( in excess of 100 at each location I would guess).I know it would involve travelling but unless you could get 20 or 30 of your mates to all meet up at the same time in the same club and let you try their cues out ( you see where I am going with this).Unless you are 100% sure of your specs it can be very costly to find them by trial and error.Good luck.

[jaffa.johnson]

And if you were to choose a reputable and reliable craftsman who would you go to?

Robin Cook but he is out of your budget and a higher priced cue.

Reputable cue maker, I would go with Dave brown/craftsman cues.

That doesnt mean that his cues will be any better than mastercraft or cue guru.

Every cue is different, The key is finding what suits you.

[jwhitbread]

I absolutely agree, however i'm interested to find out from you why you chose craftsman cues? is that personal experience? or have you heard less reputable comments made about the others? please be honest as I need to make sure I make the right decision haha

[jaffa.johnson]

I absolutely agree, however i'm interested to find out from you why you chose craftsman cues? is that personal experience? or have you heard less reputable comments made about the others? please be honest as I need to make sure I make the right decision haha

Yes my experience so far.

I think the only way u can be assured to make the right decision is to get a cue u feel comfortable with and like playing with.

To do this i think u need to visit a workshop and pick the best stock cue for u.

[jwhitbread]

ok, that's good sound advice thank you. I think i'm going to visit craftsman cues and mastercraft cues. they seem to the best two reputable companies that people have been mentioning that suit my price range too

[hotpot]

You wont go far wrong with either , I,ve had both and they are top draw .

The advice you have had is spot on .

[old school]

I have purchased two Craftsman cues (1985 ish and 2009).I have had cues altered at Craftsman i.e. re-taper,new ferrule,new tip and 3/4 jointing , so I have some idea about the standard of workmanship and customer service,"perpetual boredom" on this forum uses their services often ( oldcues website) and if you check related threads on this forum you will find Craftsman have a good reputation.In my personal opinion ( and many others) Craftsman represent value for money,as well as making good cues and you cant ask for more than that.

[jwhitbread]

This is awesome advice, thank you to everyone. Much needed defintely! As I know most of the specifications are all down to preference however is there anything advice you guys you can offer me regarding wood types, vaneer colours, exotic splices, number of splices (which i don't fully understand), cue length (which might be down to preference but am i to believe that the standard is 57 or 58 inches?), tip size (again,. 9.5mm is standard for a snooker cue right?) and cue weight (which i'm guessing is personal preference?). As you can tell there's I didn't realise there was so much to consider when getting a cue made! haha

[DeanH]

The "standard" specs you will be looking for will be:
Yes - 57-58", unless you are very tall 57.5ish will be fine.
9.5mm standard tip size for a snooker cue.
Cue weight will probably be 18oz, you probably will not notice much difference 0.5oz either way.
Now - splicing - this is really down to personaly choice.
I would say that a single splice of a nice coloured wood on top of a single veneer would be "standard" but I would recommend that you go to a shop and probably a cue will stand out to you as you go by, and you pray that it suits your play
Don't forget to get a hard case to protect your new "baby". A "standard" aluminium will protect the cue very well.
If you have not already, have a look at the "Post pictures of your cue" thread and you will very quickly get an idea of what is out there and you will start getting a personal preference
All the best with your hunt.
Don't forget to post images of your new purchase on the aforementioned thread

[jwhitbread]

Thank you for all that info! although there's so many different variants of splices etc it's so hard to choose from! what would you say this is because it's not in the description..... http://www.mastercraft-cues.co.uk/im...sCaption=-NaN-

and...

http://www.mastercraft-cues.co.uk/im...on=mastercraft cue 3

it's so difficult to choose haha! i'm like a little boy at christmas opening presents i'm that excited about it haha

[DeanH]

http://www.mastercraft-cues.co.uk/im...sCaption=-NaN-

Ash Shaft, Ebony butt, with four "fancy wood" (there are so many species of wood and I am not a wood expert) splices on thin white (maple) veneers, with a single ebony front splice (with thin white veneer) for the "flat". With cute matching mini-butt.

http://www.mastercraft-cues.co.uk/im...on=mastercraft

Maple Shaft, ebony butt, with four "fancy wood" splices on thin white (maple) veneers, with four ebony on thin white veneer front splices. Matching Mini butt.

You are on the right forum with the Xmas feeling when it comes to cues - sometimes called cue-porn

[jwhitbread]

haha cue-porn! that made me laugh out loud at my desk at work! not that i'm looking at cues at work becayse i'm so excited about it or anything!

So what's the difference between an ash shaft and a maple shaft then? :S more confusion now haha!

[DeanH]

haha cue-porn! that made me laugh out loud at my desk at work! not that i'm looking at cues at work becayse i'm so excited about it or anything!

So what's the difference between an ash shaft and a maple shaft then? :S more confusion now haha!

LOL

Difference between Ash and Maple - hmmm... you can do a search on TSF for this and you will hit many threads on the subject and you will get many differing comments, again I will have to say the usual - "personal preference".
I have owned a maple cue for over 25yrs and have recently got a ash cue (2-3 months), I "feel" the grain on the ash which I do not on the maple (as there is no grain to speak of).
I prefer maple as I do like the clean look, but many people like the ash and go nuts on the arrows/chevrons/etc.
Some people will say that maple is stiffer, others that ash is stiffer, personally I think is can be either way just down to that particular piece of wood for that particular cue. But my vote is that ash can be "generally" stiffer then maple (no, no, don't shot me - aargh!)
But then both of my cues are about the same, reasonably stiff but with some flex.

[jwhitbread]

so on the ash cues then....if you feel the grain....does this affect your cue action....when i say cue action i mean does it have an affect on your birdging fingers at all? I currently like the "look" of the second link that you commented on.....I wouldn't know where to start with the specs on the custom order form ahah!

[DeanH]

so on the ash cues then....if you feel the grain....does this affect your cue action....when i say cue action i mean does it have an affect on your birdging fingers at all? I currently like the "look" of the second link that you commented on.....I wouldn't know where to start with the specs on the custom order form ahah!

when I said I "feel" the grain it is very, very minor feeling that I obviously don't have on the maple cue. This feeling does not affect my play and if anything my consistency of higher breaks has improved since getting the ash cue.
On the Mastercraft Custom Order form I would say that the first exotic splice field would be under the second field. But when I did a query I also added comments in the box provided and Mastercraft came back with an email to confirm my description which they got spot on. Specifically I asked about a single front splice with three thin veneers (white/green/white) under it.