One piece cue ...or so I thought

[Big Splash!]

Plastic collars are a good way to try and retain some feel in the cue; good, good-good, good vibrations. Powerglide used a single collar of plastic back in the 80s with the butt having a single plastic collar and the shaft having no collar, just burnished wood. Brass bolt and socket inside. This led to some feedback, not as much as a one-piece obviously but it was no brass hammer like JP's, TW's or CC's joint either. Not really alive, but thankfully, not dead. Plastic is slightly denser than wood but nothing like metal, a reasonable compromise.

[itsnoteasy]

There are some cue makers who do a wood to wood 3/4 hidden joint, no collars, I'm pretty sure AT was the first I saw do this, it looks great and has to be the best compromise , I'm really surprised all 3/4 Cues aren't made like that.
Should add there is still a metal screw but the rest is wood to wood.

[Big Splash!]

There are some cue makers who do a wood to wood 3/4 hidden joint, no collars, I'm pretty sure AT was the first I saw do this, it looks great and has to be the best compromise , I'm really surprised all 3/4 Cues aren't made like that.
Should add there is still a metal screw but the rest is wood to wood.

Yeah, Aurora offered this option as does MW. Do you remember wood to wood joint with the wood bolt?! They were a bit sticky though, not a smooth unscrew. And they broke; but lots of WOOD feel. lol Yeah, should have got a one-piece. lol

The thing about wood to wood is the fine, precision cut. Mess it up and the butt grain doesn't match, particularly bad if there are lots of splices/vaneers. They have more tolerance to play with using double brass collars. The other thing is wood is obviously not as tough as brass, so in the wrong hands, it can easily be overscrewed or damaged. Some cue makers are resistant for this reason; they don't want to be blamed for the delicate going wrong. But my wood to plastic joint is fine and accurate when screwed to the this day and that cue is 30yrs old (though the angel ash itself could be 50+yrs old, lol).

Hats off to AT for pioneering this.

[itsnoteasy]

Yeah, Aurora offered this option as does MW. Do you remember wood to wood joint with the wood bolt?! They were a bit sticky though, not a smooth unscrew. And they broke; but lots of WOOD feel. lol Yeah, should have got a one-piece. lol

The thing about wood to wood is the fine, precision cut. Mess it up and the cue grain doesn't match. They have more tolerance to play with using double brass collars. The other thing is wood is obviously not as tough as brass, so in the wrong hands, it can easily be overscrewed or damaged. Some cue makers are resistant for this reason; they don't want to be blamed for the delicate going wrong. But my wood to plastic joint is fine and accurate when screwed to the this day and that cue is 30yrs old (though the angel ash itself could be 50+yrs old, lol).

I didn't play when wood joints were around but I can imagine them being sticky and squeaky to put together, maybe a bit of talc on the screw?
Even nowadays I see folk in the club tighten their joints with all their might, I have also seen it take two of them to get it apart at the end lol, what chance would a wooden joint have.

[Cue crafty]

Yeah, Aurora offered this option as does MW. Do you remember wood to wood joint with the wood bolt?! They were a bit sticky though, not a smooth unscrew. And they broke; but lots of WOOD feel. lol Yeah, should have got a one-piece. lol

The thing about wood to wood is the fine, precision cut. Mess it up and the cue grain doesn't match. They have more tolerance to play with using double brass collars. The other thing is wood is obviously not as tough as brass, so in the wrong hands, it can easily be overscrewed or damaged. Some cue makers are resistant for this reason; they don't want to be blamed for the delicate going wrong. But my wood to plastic joint is fine and accurate when screwed to the this day and that cue is 30yrs old (though the angel ash itself could be 50+yrs old, lol).

I bought a Michael Dunham 3/4 wood joint cue when I was about 15 cost £70 at the time that was a Lot! It had a maple collar and I always over tightened it due to some dull feel on some shots leading me to think it needed that extra twist. Cracked the joint, and run a split into the butt. At 15 I had no choice but to wood glue the whole thing together! Got a few years out of it before the glue gave way inside and the dull contact returned. Doomed cue. Still got it as a keepsake as I made a 97 with it when I was 18.

[DeanH]

One piece cue ...or so I thought

I had a cue back in the 80s which was wood to wood joint with wood screw and no collar but was not quite a "hidden" joint
Not sticky at all, just kept it clean
Also I think I have seen old cues with wood to wood joints so it is not a modern invention

[itsnoteasy]

I had a cue back in the 80s which was wood to wood joint with wood screw and no collar but was not quite a "hidden" joint
Not sticky at all, just kept it clean
Also I think I have seen old cues with wood to wood joints so it is not a modern invention

Wood to wood with a metal screw Dean?
Sorry I have just remembered im sure a lad in the club has a centre split metal screw ,wood to wood joined cue.

[DeanH]

One piece cue ...or so I thought

No, wood screw and female joint part of different wood inset into the ash shaft.

[Ramon]

tried a predator cue with titanium joint. almost the same feeling as playing with one piece cue. very impressed !!
Do'nt know why they do'nt use it for snooker cues .

[rich123]

Enjoying the input this thread is generating ....while on the subject of joints I did briefly have a cue with what looked like clear plastic or maybe an acrylic joint fitted at the half point of the cue, I seem to remember that it was fitted to the shaft along with the screw part of the joint, whichever it was I do remember that you could see the screw through the clear joint which actually appeared to magnify it. The butt I think was maybe rosewood and where it had been spliced there were gaps here and there, not cracks as such but gaps 1/2 mm or so where the two woods met. It also had a blank silver name plate on the butt end ....the only problem was that it had the smallest tip I think I have ever seen, it was tiny and I couldn't play with it.

Looking back I could have taken it to be altered maybe but this was the early 90's and I was very young and skint, an old bloke in the club we went to offered me £15 for it, I was stuck on a ****ty YTS scheme and remember my weekly wage being around £37.50, I snapped his hand off. I wonder where the cue is now ?

[itsnoteasy]

If they looked like cracks but you couldn't feel them, they may well have been glue lines where the main splicing has been done.

[Andy Tunaley]

I've got a similar cue to Cue Crafty's Michael Dunham mentioned earlier.
I had a Burroughes & Watts Joseph Bennett cue converted by Michael Dunham's company - Classic Custom Cues in about 1984.
I had one of their stock ebony butts and the joint added. It has a thick maple collar and the joint was about 2 inches long of wide threaded maple. It has a wood to wood connection. I also got the matching extension which is tapered into the middle to save weight.
I wanted the cue to look like Jimmy Whites back in the day. See the cue he uses in the 84 Masters at Wembley where Kirk Stevens got his 147 to see what it looks like.
Unfortunately I don't play anything like Jimmy White and started using a different cue. I do still have it though.
I dug it out earlier this year and the foam from the Silver Fox case had disintegrated all over it. Stupidly I tried to clean the foam off with warm water, the wooden joint swelled, and I snapped the joint trying to undo it.
Everything has now been fixed by Richy MacDonald (The Doctor) and he replaced the wooden joint with a brass one for me. It's still wood to wood and a new joint has also been added to the end of the butt.
Richy is a top fella and does great work. He's done a wonderful job saving this cue and his own Mac cues are fantastic too.
The shaft of this cue came from a Joseph Bennett cue made in the 1880s. This makes it about 130 years old and it's completely straight .... Is there a new category of Archangel Ash ?

[DeanH]

Is there a new category of Archangel Ash ?

Don't, just... please don't

The cues sound great, any pictures you can share?