Beware of hobbiest cue makers

[vmax4steve]

I don't doubt that some hobiest cuemakers can make nice cues but the point I was making is that it really is at your own risk if buying from one without seeing the item first and you can't really moan about it afterwards.

There's no risk at all if you get your money back if dissatisfied, and if you like it and it suits your game then you have a quality item that is unique that no one else has.

[gem]

There's no risk at all if you get your money back if dissatisfied, and if you like it and it suits your game then you have a quality item that is unique that no one else has.

If you can get your money back then all you have lost is time and a bit hassle to sort it out.
That would be fair and might mean standards would have to be a decent standard.

[j6uk]

if you know how to produce a nice hitting cue you are a cue maker, hobby or not. it gets to a point when its all about the wood and who's got it

[itsnoteasy]

Both Jason Owen and Crispian Jones were hobbiest cuemakers a couple or three years ago, yet now they have excellent reputations on this very forum, despite 99% of the people on this forum never having seen or played with any of their cues.
I myself am a hobbiest, but I have over twenty years experience as a wood machinist/joiner and quite honestly I find that making cues by hand is quite easy, but very time consuming labour wise and the vagueries of the movement of timber when it is cut and shaped into a cue can be desperately annoying and very costly.

The quality of the raw materials used is paramount if the job is to be trouble free, but even close inspection and selection of what looks to be excellent timber doesn't make it so come the final or even the first cut. As a hobbiest I cannot afford to buy in bulk so make just one or two cues at a time at more cost than what it is to John Parris, but if the wood I'm using moves too much near the end of the process I find myself out of pocket to the tune of about £50, not counting the cost of forty hours of hard labour gone to waste.

I'm in the middle of making one now. The shaft I've had for over a year, shaped it little by little until it's now two mill oversize, tapering down from 32mm to 12mm and has stayed dead straight the past three months since it's last cut.
Glued on the first two butt splices last week and will glue on the second two sometime this week and then leave it for a month to see if the shaft moves. If it does I'm out of pocket again, if it doesn't then it will sell on ebay for enough money to fund my next one.

If I get good at this then next year I'm going to cash in a couple of frozen pension schemes, get myself some tooling and bulk buy some timber to do it this full time and hopefully get out of the awful monotonous soul destroying existence I'm in now and do something for a living that I'm actually interested in for the first time in my life.

So don't knock me/us hobbiests, we're trying our best and not (at least not yet ) deliberately ripping anyone off with shady deals on imported cues made from timber raped from virgin rainforests.
Just doing something we love that's all.

What a fantastic post Vmax, I really hope you get to follow your dream, and end up doing something you love as a living, I did this years ago and have never regretted it for a second, even on the worst of days it's ten times better than being stuck in an office(my previous existence ).

[Saint Michael]

I've read this post but decided not to comment. However I had cause to go see jim Evans yesterday. In short I had a cue which I got for free, which I don't need. So I've given jim it as a donor cue. I have known jim for a few years through tsf and met him on a handful of occasions. Every time he's been a thoroughly nice fella. I'm not naive to think for a moment this makes you a decent cue maker. Jim is well in to snooker and snooker cues. As most are on tsf. So the main point of my post comes now. Jim showed me the cue in question. I took around five minutes examining the cue and these are my findings.
Jim does not profess to be Trevor white etc. he has made a cue to order from scratch. Which in my opinion is an achievement in itself. The cue around two inches from the end did have a slight move to the right when holding the badge face up. However upon closer inspection this is caused by the grain itself and not the cue being bent/warped. I don't think for one second jim has made a bad cue. I just think the grain and wood has caused the issues. If he was a professional cue doctor his selection of ash would have been better. But then again his prices would reflect this.

Jim was kind enough to show me a few ongoing projects. Including the Fred England cues. He's doing a top job on these cues.

Finally. Making cues is an art. You either have the talent and professional set up like wooldridge, white, parris etc. or you're an amateur/hobbiest.

I hope I've not offended anyone with this reply. But after seeing the cue yesterday I thought I would give an opinion. And that is "I blame it on the ash and grain" Not jim

Kind regards

Michael

[DeanH]

Saint Michael - but did you check the cue alongside an Engineering Straight Edge!

[RunningSide]

I would have done so, I know, if had had a one around...

[ADR147]

I would have done so, I know, if had had a one around...

I think if you started to check cues with an engineering straight edge in my office I would be crying with laughter as I threw you out on the street.

[Saint Michael]

I think if you started to check cues with an engineering straight edge in my office I would be crying with laughter as I threw you out on the street.

Ha ha. What's wrong with a trained eye. Left my laser guides spirit level at home

[RunningSide]

I think if you started to check cues with an engineering straight edge in my office I would be crying with laughter as I threw you out on the street.

Please check the street first to be exact level I beg You!!

[j6uk]

Please check the street first to be exact level I beg You!!

don't beg adr, he'll only use and abuse you more