'Hand Made' Cues - Do they have any inherent value?

[the lone wolf]

4 states in 3 days? Yikes.

I'm constantly staggered by their gambling culture, with games lasting for days on end. X ahead matches strike me as being completely pointless, as does not quitting ahead. The thought of playing anything over about 3 hours makes me feel physically sick. Would quite like to be a rail bird, however.

Yes, gambling is certainly one (of many) thing that makes us different from the yanks. Their interpretation of who's best is to see who can stay awake the longest to pot the balls :snooker: I like yourself have no interest after 3 hours. That said I did play a guy for nearly 8 hours - But that's only because I was taking the chicken home...

[winphenom]

I've just finished this double-tapered Bo Staff using a plane and sanding blocks. I have a worktop in my shed but it's not level and sloping so no use. So I planed it on a Draper fold-out workbench thing that chippies carry in vans. I cut the square from a board using a saw; one of those hand held ones you buy in DIY shops for a tenner. No electric plugs required. I planed it thrice as the wonderful Geordie cue maker recommends. So it goes 4, 8, 16 sider, round. Resting in between for a month and it did move a lot. It's a prototype for the next one in air dried, aged oak. I can say hand on heart, it's 100% hand made. Oddly, despite no computers and machines, the BP is exactly at the mid-point as it should be for perfect control in martial arts.

If I can do it, why do cue makers require lathes, copy lathes, imported shafts and cheap Thai/Chinese supply made on machines? Profit you say, lucre you say, greed you say? Not sure, but that's capitalism for ya. Squeeze the customer and take the cream off the top for yaself. Such is life and the world but it doesn't seem like love of a craft to me sometimes. Makes me sad in a way, that nothing, even beautiful crafts are above the dark side of the economic jungle.

good work there mate. Some serious and hard work there.

its true that many do this for a living so profit is definitely the MAIN motive with passion coming second. Though not for all.
So time is of utmost importance to make as many cues for sale as possible.

What irks me is when they claim its handmade by themselves and charge high prices but in fact, the origin is unknown. They only do some quality control checks and finishing and sticking their name on it. Its tantamount to cheating in a way.

[sanman]

So Master Blaster. The master plan has come along. you finally showing your hand. which explains a lot. I remember very clearly a while back you mentioning handmade cues made by a certain unknown cuemaker. All with guaranteed "angel ash". So that cuemaker was going to be the one and only master blaster himself lol. I remember the airy fairy angel badge u pilfered from some online cartoon. Would you by any chance be airin. It would tie up with your adoration for aurora cues and timeless timber spiel and well as you and airin would match personalities very well. So mysterious

Its well and good that you are a cuemaker or want to become one however lets put to bed the nonsense u spew out with facts and not fiction.

firstly air dried ash does not play better. I know as I have a dozen square blanks that I got from a log cut at a wood yard here in south Africa and it does not make a good playing cue even after 8 years drying. whippy and rubbish playing cues. If air-dried cues were so much better then every player professional or otherwise would only be using airdried. There is no scientific research that backs airdry shafts being better either.

secondly cues that are machined are more accurately made and hence should be a more accurate piece of equipment to play with. The notion that a handmade is in any way better is completely false and again the notion that somehow these cues attain magical powers just because the sweat of the craftsman soaked into the wood doesn't hold true. just the same way that air dried cues don't become superior in any way to kiln dried timber.

seriously if you wanna be a cuemaker all the best to you. Aint an easy craft but can be very satisfying. however you going on rubbishing peoples work and trying to drive your agendas is a no no. Ultimately we all here on the forum to learn and keep up to date and make new friends and spend some time on subjects we all passionate about. You however mate have become a polarizing figure here for selfish reasons.

I've just finished this double-tapered Bo Staff using a plane and sanding blocks. I have a worktop in my shed but it's not level and sloping so no use. So I planed it on a Draper fold-out workbench thing that chippies carry in vans. I cut the square from a board using a saw; one of those hand held ones you buy in DIY shops for a tenner. No electric plugs required. I planed it thrice as the wonderful Geordie cue maker recommends. So it goes 4, 8, 16 sider, round. Resting in between for a month and it did move a lot. It's a prototype for the next one in air dried, aged oak. I can say hand on heart, it's 100% hand made. Oddly, despite no computers and machines, the BP is exactly at the mid-point as it should be for perfect control in martial arts.

If I can do it, why do cue makers require lathes, copy lathes, imported shafts and cheap Thai/Chinese supply made on machines? Profit you say, lucre you say, greed you say? Not sure, but that's capitalism for ya. Squeeze the customer and take the cream off the top for yaself. Such is life and the world but it doesn't seem like love of a craft to me sometimes. Makes me sad in a way, that nothing, even beautiful crafts are above the dark side of the economic jungle.

[Big Splash!]

Buffalo make fine cues it seems. Powerglide of old made the best cues in the 80s, and the ash was air-dried for 12-24yrs. That's a fact. Until they ran out, got bought out and started making oven cues in China, no better or worse than any other oven cue I guess. Folk can go on about Parris, TW, TP, etc but the most successful cue wielded remains a Powerglide that Hendry used; 7 world titles with one cue. To build a great cue, you have to imbue playability, as J6 understands, as a fine cue maker. He makes great cues. Others make junk. But air-dried wood is still maturing, all the time. It retains playability not seen in cooked cues. Ramon said his finest cue was air dried and he's owned everything. Unfortunately, he can't say this now due to a pointless ban. If you don't have the hands, you won't know any difference but those of us with feel can sense 1/4 more life in an air dried cue. It's like whisky, it's only alive and maturing in the barrel. Bottle it and it's dead. Cook timber and it's dead. Heat up anything thermally for a month and the material will change. All materials change with heat, even rock. That's just basic physics. All the life is sucked out of KD; it's carroty, splits and is horrible to work with and turn. AD is the exact opposite. Everyone knows that!

[Homer]

So Master Blaster. The master plan has come along. you finally showing your hand. which explains a lot. I remember very clearly a while back you mentioning handmade cues made by a certain unknown cuemaker. All with guaranteed "angel ash". So that cuemaker was going to be the one and only master blaster himself lol. I remember the airy fairy angel badge u pilfered from some online cartoon. Would you by any chance be airin. It would tie up with your adoration for aurora cues and timeless timber spiel and well as you and airin would match personalities very well. So mysterious

Its well and good that you are a cuemaker or want to become one however lets put to bed the nonsense u spew out with facts and not fiction.

firstly air dried ash does not play better. I know as I have a dozen square blanks that I got from a log cut at a wood yard here in south Africa and it does not make a good playing cue even after 8 years drying. whippy and rubbish playing cues. If air-dried cues were so much better then every player professional or otherwise would only be using airdried. There is no scientific research that backs airdry shafts being better either.

secondly cues that are machined are more accurately made and hence should be a more accurate piece of equipment to play with. The notion that a handmade is in any way better is completely false and again the notion that somehow these cues attain magical powers just because the sweat of the craftsman soaked into the wood doesn't hold true. just the same way that air dried cues don't become superior in any way to kiln dried timber.

seriously if you wanna be a cuemaker all the best to you. Aint an easy craft but can be very satisfying. however you going on rubbishing peoples work and trying to drive your agendas is a no no. Ultimately we all here on the forum to learn and keep up to date and make new friends and spend some time on subjects we all passionate about. You however mate have become a polarizing figure here for selfish reasons.

At last someone speaks some sense. This master blaster is not living in the real world and to be honest just continually spoils this forum.
At best he should be banned and at least he should be ignored.
People on here that really know about cues move away from the forum because of insane fishing rants like this and certainly dont comment on his ramblings.

[Big Splash!]

good work there mate. Some serious and hard work there.

its true that many do this for a living so profit is definitely the MAIN motive with passion coming second. Though not for all.
So time is of utmost importance to make as many cues for sale as possible.

What irks me is when they claim its handmade by themselves and charge high prices but in fact, the origin is unknown. They only do some quality control checks and finishing and sticking their name on it. Its tantamount to cheating in a way.

Thankyou for your compliment.

That's my beef. They're cheating the public and cheating the genuine cue maker like J6 and others who genuinely make a cue from scratch by hand. The public are being ripped off. Note how these cue makers don't reduce their prices either, in fact, they buy machines then increase their prices! How would you feel if you put your heart and soul into a cue and sell it for say £300 and some capitalist with machines, assistants who never gets his hands full of splinters, is badging up at £700? Think about that. What is the intrinsic value of a skilled man's hands? Nothing for some it would seem, even for the serious cue collector, whose only interest these days seems the badge and investment opportunity. Sad times.

It took 20hrs to make the staff. Was it worth it when I could have bought a machine made staff off ebay for £30? Well, yes, because this is a custom freebie for a young black belt. And I hope she will treasure it more and it will make her more devoted to the fine art of seriously damaging people. :biggrin-new: If everything has nothing but a price, life is very throw away. I hope the staff teaches her that some things, like her art, are above mere money. That money cannot be taken to the afterlife, so why chase it? Become the artist within you, in whatever field. Achieving true potential lies far above being greedy.

[Big Splash!]

At last someone speaks some sense. This master blaster is not living in the real world and to be honest just continually spoils this forum.
At best he should be banned and at least he should be ignored.
People on here that really know about cues move away from the forum because of insane fishing rants like this and certainly dont comment on his ramblings.

You're clearly not the Homer of Greece; logic is not your friend it seems.

[itsnoteasy]

TW says there is no difference between kiln dried and air dried wood and I have heard he's made the odd cue and knows a thing or two. I don't see how doing the cutting into blanks by a machine or using an electric plane to make oversized shafts makes any difference to calling it a hand made cue, if it's taken down by hand to the finished size.
I don't know enough about wood to know if making every cue to a set template on a machine makes a good cue or not, but it's reasonable to think some will be very good ,some average and some poor, now the relation of very good, good and poor you get when hand made I don't know , can the cue maker make a difference or is it all down to the wood so it may aswell be done on a machine.

[Big Splash!]

It's called art, as someone else put it and the love of that art.

If it's about machines, let's scrap the cue maker altogether, it can't be that hard if Google can have driverless cars, I'm sure a company is out there, making cues with robots. Let's have robot wars instead and just make everyone redundant. Robots are faster, more efficient and cheaper than humans.

On this point, I do question whether people are even using planes to shave the cue down for the splices. It wouldn't surprise me if some dodgy types were using machines to do this as well. In other words machine 'hand' spliced. Maybe cue makers need to learn coding before planing, to use the machines and comps as well as they can be used.

Not having a personal go, you're a top guy in my book.

*As for trev, he did say that. But then again, he's probably never had his hands on air-dried aged to 12-24yrs. If Powerglide ran out of their own stocks of old AD and couldn't find anymore, what chance would a small cue maker have?! a few suppliers are selling AD boards at 3-5yrs. That's okay for woodwork but not cues. Total stability is 12-24yrs and that's why Powerglide held their own stocks for a long time. A pity the boom in the 80s eliminated these stocks.

I'm not sure how old the stuff Buffalo use is. Age does matter, not just for water content but for getting rid of all the stresses in the timber, slowly. Wood needs to settle. Open up some kiln wood as I did for the staff proto and watch it warp. Jesus, it must have moved half an inch when it was cut off the board. And boy did it carrot and splinter under the plane. Horrible. The next one will be aged oak. KD is just a joke, fit for roof trusses on estates put up in 3mths maybe. If you go in the loft and look at the woodwork, you'll see splinters everywhere. You won't see these in old pubs/houses with aged timbers when there where no kilns. And that's down to how the timber reacts when worked.

[jimmymoller]

give me kiln dried over air dried every time. Air dried timbers will dry out over time but more often than not they are stack piled out in the open so do I need to ask what happens when it rains? Kiln dried is just that, it's dried then stacked in warehouses under cover away from the elements.

When you cut ash maple whatever from a board be it air or kiln dried it will bend significantly and of course needs to be left a time to settle back. Same goes for when you taper a shaft either using a lathe or by plane, it should be done in stages allowing the wood again to settle down.

Remember though whatever the moisture content quoted it's only a sample that's been tested at whatever place or time and by the time you've had it in your shed garage whatever it's content has altered again.

[billabong]

But then again, he's probably never had his hands on air-dried aged to 12-24yrs. If Powerglide ran out of their own stocks of old AD and couldn't find anymore, what chance would a small cue maker have?! a few suppliers are selling AD boards at 3-5yrs. That's okay for woodwork but not cues. Total stability is 12-24yrs and that's why Powerglide held their own stocks for a long time. A pity the boom in the 80s eliminated these stocks.

I don't get this. That's like the guy from the distillery going down to bottle that morning's whisky,
and finding he had ran out of barrels because they had stopped laying down barrels 12 years ago. .

You don't just run out of stock, you continually lay down stuff as you use it up . . . or am I missing something here.

. . and how can total stability be 12 - 24 years ? how do you measure this ? Do you find some that's been there for , say 14 years

and think " Mmm another 10 years for that one to be stable" , or "yep that one's stable at 14 years" ?

Educate me please ( more than Andy Hunter has ) . . .

[Big Splash!]

I don't get this. That's like the guy from the distillery going down to bottle that morning's whisky,
and finding he had ran out of barrels because they had stopped laying down barrels 12 years ago. .

You don't just run out of stock, you continually lay down stuff as you use it up . . . or am I missing something here.

. . and how can total stability be 12 - 24 years ? how do you measure this ? Do you find some that's been there for , say 14 years

and think " Mmm another 10 years for that one to be stable" , or "yep that one's stable at 14 years" ?

Educate me please ( more than Andy Hunter has ) . . .

They were taken over by Unicorn and their business model changed. As you know, they mostly make cues in China now so they didn't need to think about AD any more. The boom in the 80s was huge (I'd say 10x the number of people we have now were playing and buying cues then) and they used stock up, even younger stock on the cheaper end of the range, the 'Executive' cue for example. By the mid 90s the stock was gone. One of the tragedies in cue making. As you point out, they should have laid down more stock but given the Unicorn takeover and the search for faster bucks, I'm guessing that any such ideas were canned.

Stability; you are right, no two boards are the same. It is variable. A cue maker there told me they put the stuff down for a minimum of twelve years, then checked it onwards. Some of the timber was 24yrs old. It was used for their best cues, when IT was ready. None of the premium cues had ash less than 12yrs old.

I was told by a big source on here that JP has a secret unit full of very old ash and hardwoods, some of it aged 50yrs. This doesn't surprise me, given what I know about Powerglide back in the day. If it turned out that JPUs for pros were made of something special, hmm, no surprise.

[Shockerz]

They were taken over by Unicorn and their business model changed. As you know, they mostly make cues in China now so they didn't need to think about AD any more. The boom in the 80s was huge (I'd say 10x the number of people we have now were playing and buying cues then) and they used stock up, even younger stock on the cheaper end of the range, the 'Executive' cue for example. By the mid 90s the stock was gone. One of the tragedies in cue making. As you point out, they should have laid down more stock but given the Unicorn takeover and the search for faster bucks, I'm guessing that any such ideas were canned.

Stability; you are right, no two boards are the same. It is variable. A cue maker there told me they put the stuff down for a minimum of twelve years, then checked it onwards. Some of the timber was 24yrs old. It was used for their best cues, when IT was ready. None of the premium cues had ash less than 12yrs old.

I was told by a big source on here that JP has a secret unit full of very old ash and hardwoods, some of it aged 50yrs. This doesn't surprise me, given what I know about Powerglide back in the day. If it turned out that JPUs for pros were made of something special, hmm, no surprise.

I heard that about JP as regards the 50 year timber. Correct me if I'm wrong, that's 12,24 and 50 years plus the age of the tree meaning a lot of the timber is 10 years+ in terms of tree age?

[Big Splash!]

Yep. Ash can live nearly a thousand years (the Tinnis ash is 900yrs old I believe) but a lot of all ages is dying now unfortunately. Generally, it's not as long lived as oak and yew for example. At what age bracket they cut it down on plantations, I'm not sure bud. I've always wanted to know this. Anyone know?

[Shockerz]

Yep. Ash can live nearly a thousand years (the Tinnis ash is 900yrs old I believe) but a lot of all ages is dying now unfortunately. Generally, it's not as long lived as oak and yew for example. At what age bracket they cut it down on plantations, I'm not sure bud. I've always wanted to know this. Anyone know?

Yeah it always annoys me when someone smashes their cue around and bends it over a table whilst I'm thinking that bit of wood could be a couple of hundred years old, been given the love and care of a craftsman and now in the hands of someone who totally doesn't appreciate what it took to get it to them!