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New cues - review
I promised to do a writeup on these two cues so here I am. After a week and a bit with these cues here is my take on them. Both identical specs as they were made for me.
29.5 mm butt
9.5mm tip
59 inch length
And 18 ounces with balance at 18.5 inches, ideally 18 inches but it doesn’t affect much, if at all.
Firstly the craftsmanship
24 inch top splice with 12 splices on each cue. Burl on one and a species of rosewood on the other. Will find out what species variety of rosewood it is.
Burl spliced cue……..One splices on the burl cue is off by between 1-2 mm on one of the splices and there is a slight brown mark on one ebony splice. The others are smack on top and bottom. The shaft has a slight knot mark but I have seen a lot worse on other cues. That being said it plays beautifully. The grain on the shaft is amongst the straightest I have on all my cues. And I do have a good few. The grain is very prominent and were it not for the slight knot it would be a fabulous shaft.
The second cue with the rosewood middle splice is my preferred amongst the two. The shaft is one of the most pleasing shafts that I have ever seen, free of any defects and also very straight grain with 4 even spaced arrows(counting the arrow above the top splice) with two long arrows on the reverse. The nice thing is it plays absolutely awesome as well. Everything on this cue ticks the right boxes. This cue has no defects in shaft or workmanship or materials. Splicing is top notch. I usually prefer a slightly stiffer shaft although this is in no way whippy(7 out of 10 for stiffness). I have lined these cues with the rest of my cues to show how they stack up in visual terms with the rest. They do tend to stand out amongst the other cues. Will update these pics later.
There have been a few enquiries as to who makes these cues. They are made in collaboration with a a friend of mine here locally in South Africa over the last 6 months. This is cue no 11(burl) and 12 (rosewood) that he has made to completion. We have lost far more attempted cues in the past six monthsdue to a number of reasons, but that was acceptable as we were learning. I did not post any pics of the past efforts as I was not happy with them. Off all the cues made by us, I have cue number 6 with me which has some gluing defects but a nice shaft. I may have this respliced. The others were sold cheaply and unbadged here to cover some material costs. This has been a learning experience for him as well as me and I am glad to say that in 6 months and 12 completed cues later we are much further in making cues than most guys. He does the splicing and I determine the taper, the balance point, weighting and i also finish the cues. We have had guidance from another guy who made and repaired cues in Pietermaritzburg previously but he hung up his boots a while back. He is quiet old and his cues were average variety but he did help us a lot with splicing and gluing techniques and info. I now have 20 good ash shafts lined up. All are going to be one piece cues. We haven’t worked on making a ¾ yet. Wanna make consistantly good one pieces and if it does end up as a commercial venture then I guess we will look at a better lathe and a joint for 3/4 cues. I am working on a base joint and I think I am going to use the airlock female joint for the butt joint with the disk trimmed to reduce weight at the end and the male joint for the extension. I am also working on badges and I like a brass badge to go with the cue. Somehow I don’t really like the plastic badges. Also the badges will be numbered. 1 to 20 and I really don’t care if I don’t sell them as the ash I have sourced is really good. Very much like the ones in the pics. I do have some lighter coloured ash but also very good quality. I can’t wait to see them turned into dowels and see how the grains look.
Production of the 20 cues will start from January as I am going to be busy with some exams come October and November. December is basically a holiday month and it gives my mate/partner some time to meet his other commitments.
I have sold the burl cue. Locally bought and deposit paid. he will get the cue when he pays up in full. The buyer wants a badge with it and as soon as I have my badges sorted out he will bring the cue back for badge and butt joint with extensions as part of the deal. He gets badge number 00. The rosewood centre spliced cue I have no intention of ever selling. I just love it.
I will be adding some pics of other cues we have made and some of the mistakes on the burl cue. That said I am very happy with the progress we have made. Even if this cue making partnership does not take off commercially I have satisfied one very important aim. I have learnt how a cue is made and the frustrations and dedication it takes to make a cue. While its not rocket science to splice together 4 pieces of timber to a dowelled shaft it takes skill and patience and bloody hard work to get all the splices even and to do so consistantly is an art to itself. Thus far I am out of pocket in excess of 500 pounds with one good cue and one reject cue to show for my efforts. As I have said any useable cue that was did not make the grade we sold it localy in SA unbadged. I am thankful my mate has some good equipment and that has made our job of making these cues so much easier. I guess the next stage is for me to actually get involved in the entire cue making bit and make a cue all on my own. Problem is I work weekdays and only have weekends(saturday basically and half day at that to do any work on the cues already made). that is something I will look at next year. I have lots of reject ash and some reject maple shafts. Need to find uses for them.
Thanks for reading.
29.5 mm butt
9.5mm tip
59 inch length
And 18 ounces with balance at 18.5 inches, ideally 18 inches but it doesn’t affect much, if at all.
Firstly the craftsmanship
24 inch top splice with 12 splices on each cue. Burl on one and a species of rosewood on the other. Will find out what species variety of rosewood it is.
Burl spliced cue……..One splices on the burl cue is off by between 1-2 mm on one of the splices and there is a slight brown mark on one ebony splice. The others are smack on top and bottom. The shaft has a slight knot mark but I have seen a lot worse on other cues. That being said it plays beautifully. The grain on the shaft is amongst the straightest I have on all my cues. And I do have a good few. The grain is very prominent and were it not for the slight knot it would be a fabulous shaft.
The second cue with the rosewood middle splice is my preferred amongst the two. The shaft is one of the most pleasing shafts that I have ever seen, free of any defects and also very straight grain with 4 even spaced arrows(counting the arrow above the top splice) with two long arrows on the reverse. The nice thing is it plays absolutely awesome as well. Everything on this cue ticks the right boxes. This cue has no defects in shaft or workmanship or materials. Splicing is top notch. I usually prefer a slightly stiffer shaft although this is in no way whippy(7 out of 10 for stiffness). I have lined these cues with the rest of my cues to show how they stack up in visual terms with the rest. They do tend to stand out amongst the other cues. Will update these pics later.
There have been a few enquiries as to who makes these cues. They are made in collaboration with a a friend of mine here locally in South Africa over the last 6 months. This is cue no 11(burl) and 12 (rosewood) that he has made to completion. We have lost far more attempted cues in the past six monthsdue to a number of reasons, but that was acceptable as we were learning. I did not post any pics of the past efforts as I was not happy with them. Off all the cues made by us, I have cue number 6 with me which has some gluing defects but a nice shaft. I may have this respliced. The others were sold cheaply and unbadged here to cover some material costs. This has been a learning experience for him as well as me and I am glad to say that in 6 months and 12 completed cues later we are much further in making cues than most guys. He does the splicing and I determine the taper, the balance point, weighting and i also finish the cues. We have had guidance from another guy who made and repaired cues in Pietermaritzburg previously but he hung up his boots a while back. He is quiet old and his cues were average variety but he did help us a lot with splicing and gluing techniques and info. I now have 20 good ash shafts lined up. All are going to be one piece cues. We haven’t worked on making a ¾ yet. Wanna make consistantly good one pieces and if it does end up as a commercial venture then I guess we will look at a better lathe and a joint for 3/4 cues. I am working on a base joint and I think I am going to use the airlock female joint for the butt joint with the disk trimmed to reduce weight at the end and the male joint for the extension. I am also working on badges and I like a brass badge to go with the cue. Somehow I don’t really like the plastic badges. Also the badges will be numbered. 1 to 20 and I really don’t care if I don’t sell them as the ash I have sourced is really good. Very much like the ones in the pics. I do have some lighter coloured ash but also very good quality. I can’t wait to see them turned into dowels and see how the grains look.
Production of the 20 cues will start from January as I am going to be busy with some exams come October and November. December is basically a holiday month and it gives my mate/partner some time to meet his other commitments.
I have sold the burl cue. Locally bought and deposit paid. he will get the cue when he pays up in full. The buyer wants a badge with it and as soon as I have my badges sorted out he will bring the cue back for badge and butt joint with extensions as part of the deal. He gets badge number 00. The rosewood centre spliced cue I have no intention of ever selling. I just love it.
I will be adding some pics of other cues we have made and some of the mistakes on the burl cue. That said I am very happy with the progress we have made. Even if this cue making partnership does not take off commercially I have satisfied one very important aim. I have learnt how a cue is made and the frustrations and dedication it takes to make a cue. While its not rocket science to splice together 4 pieces of timber to a dowelled shaft it takes skill and patience and bloody hard work to get all the splices even and to do so consistantly is an art to itself. Thus far I am out of pocket in excess of 500 pounds with one good cue and one reject cue to show for my efforts. As I have said any useable cue that was did not make the grade we sold it localy in SA unbadged. I am thankful my mate has some good equipment and that has made our job of making these cues so much easier. I guess the next stage is for me to actually get involved in the entire cue making bit and make a cue all on my own. Problem is I work weekdays and only have weekends(saturday basically and half day at that to do any work on the cues already made). that is something I will look at next year. I have lots of reject ash and some reject maple shafts. Need to find uses for them.
Thanks for reading.
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