Cutting cue blanks from Ash

[JK Lewis]

Afternoon! I'm new to the forum, arriving here from a different direction to most I imagine. My business is the manufacturing of cricket bat clefts, from Willow. I live in Suffolk, pretty much the heartland of global Willow production.

One of the growers I work with has asked if I'd be interested in some Ash. So, before I dive in I thought I'd get some advice on the weights and dimensions that cuemakers expect for cue blanks, and anything else that would be important to look for.

Many thanks, in advance, for your help. If there are any cuemakers in Suffolk or Essex I'd be grateful for their details also.

[DeanH]

from what I have seen, a blank is approx. 2"x2"x60"; from this they can get a 1pc cue, can be shorter if after a 3/4 shaft
weight - no idea never seen this mentioned

hopefully a cuemaker will pop on

[JK Lewis]

Thanks Dean, very useful, much appreciated. I'll be sure to get logs cut long enough. Cricket bat rounds are half the length!

[vmax]

As a cuemaker I'd be looking for straight tight grain no matter what the species of timber, kiln dried 1/4 sawn boards cut to 35mm X 35mm X 1500/1550mm for a one piece and 25mm X 25mm X 1100mm for a 3/4 split cue. Please don't go down the road of producing tapered dowells, I had a bad experience lately with some pearwood supplied as 35mm to 12mm tapered dowells that had been made in one cut, very poorly finished and warped within three days so I sent them back for a refund but got hammered with the postage.
It was a new line for them and their supplier let them down with shoddy workmanship, we cuemakers like to season our timber by cutting it down in stages over the course of a year to release the stresses within slowly.

Would like to know if you could supply a couple of pieces of willow as a trial as I like to try out different timbers other than the bog standard ash and maple.

[JK Lewis]

As a cuemaker I'd be looking for straight tight grain no matter what the species of timber, kiln dried 1/4 sawn boards cut to 35mm X 35mm X 1500/1550mm for a one piece and 25mm X 25mm X 1100mm for a 3/4 split cue. Please don't go down the road of producing tapered dowells, I had a bad experience lately with some pearwood supplied as 35mm to 12mm tapered dowells that had been made in one cut, very poorly finished and warped within three days so I sent them back for a refund but got hammered with the postage.
It was a new line for them and their supplier let them down with shoddy workmanship, we cuemakers like to season our timber by cutting it down in stages over the course of a year to release the stresses within slowly.

Would like to know if you could supply a couple of pieces of willow as a trial as I like to try out different timbers other than the bog standard ash and maple.

Thanks vmax, that's excellent information and detail. Interesting point about the tapering. No, I would not do that, truth is I couldn't if I wanted to! Willow clefts for bats are fairly simple - all straight cuts - so I don't have a lathe or whatever to even attempt a taper. Do you happen to know the approx. weight of a one piece blank, as it is when you receive it?

Let me think about the willow. In theory I could do it but the 'rounds' I make for bats are much shorter, at 700mm (30") So it's not something I have available now, I'd need to cut a double length piece and get it back to the workshop. Probably not impossible, I'll let you know in the autumn when felling season is properly underway. I wonder if willow would be stiff enough for cues? It grows fast, grains can be 10-12mm apart, sometimes more. Worth experimenting of course, so I'll see what I can do.

[vmax]

I wonder if willow would be stiff enough for cues? It grows fast, grains can be 10-12mm apart, sometimes more. Worth experimenting of course, so I'll see what I can do.

Thanks JK but if that's the case with willow then it's probably not good for cues so don't bother.