Good budget Cues // Introduction

[Taxi]

Just be very carefull when you are removing the lacquer finish dont go heavy as you will remove the black paint from the butt and you will find brown wood underneath..these cues are cheap for a reason.

There is no paint Dick.

[warren132]

ha ha....nice one your only fooling yourself..

[Taxi]

Warren, if you have nothing positive to add to a conversation, it's probably best to step back from the keyboard and avoid making a prat of yourself. The cues are cheap for obvious reasons. Mostly the labour costs involved. A cue maker here in the UK couldn't possibly compete with a workforce who'll work all day for less than the cost of a Sainsburys breakfast. I work for myself, and if I don't charge at least £40 an hour I'd go skint quickly. My mechanic charges £60 an hour. I don't expect any cue maker in the UK works for minimum wage. If Mr Parris can sell a cue for less than £300, it doesn't take a genius to work out that a cue can be made in just a few hours. I don't mean he can start work at 8am and knock out a classic by Midday. But the total time spent on each individual cue adds up to no more than about half a day. I should probably draw you pictures to help you understand the economics (you can look that word up if it helps). But china today is producing some very high quality products, which is why a lot of manufacturers have moved their factories there. Their cue industry has moved on light years, and they're now producing some very nice stuff at unbeatable prices. Would I rather have this cue built by Parris? yes. Would I pay £1000 and wait 2 years? No!

[jonny66]

I have actually had the butt joint out of my Grand cue, nothing but black wood in there. I've also done some pretty heavy sanding and it's all black.

But there's no need to start calling people names about it.

[warren132]

Not all cheap cues are painted..i have a nice cue made by dunns and it lovley..as for name calling thats just you showing you true colours and its not me being a pratt.

[Taxi]

I have actually had the butt joint out of my Grand cue, nothing but black wood in there. I've also done some pretty heavy sanding and it's all black.

But there's no need to start calling people names about it.

Fair comment. Sometimes I speak as I find and probably shouldn't. But sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.

[narl]

But the total time spent on each individual cue adds up to no more than about half a day.

Doubtful, for example ultimate's are totally hand planed, it takes hours (certainly more than half a day for this alone) to get the cue from a square to a tapered shaft. You can drastically speed the process up by using an electric planer with absolutely no detriment to the cue, but they stick to the manual hand plane method for that particular cue.

[jrc750]

Doubtful, for example ultimate's are totally hand planed, it takes hours (certainly more than half a day for this alone) to get the cue from a square to a tapered shaft. You can drastically speed the process up by using an electric planer with absolutely no detriment to the cue, but they stick to the manual hand plane method for that particular cue.

Do you really believe they do ?

[narl]

Do you really believe they do ?

No reason why they wouldn't if you consider the waiting period for an ultimate vs the "range" cues that are turned to 3-4mm oversize then tapered down the rest of the way by hand plane.

[Taxi]

Doubtful, for example ultimate's are totally hand planed, it takes hours (certainly more than half a day for this alone) to get the cue from a square to a tapered shaft. You can drastically speed the process up by using an electric planer with absolutely no detriment to the cue, but they stick to the manual hand plane method for that particular cue.

Take that out of context? Great idea.
Try reading the whole post, you'll see I was making comment a £300 cue. Not the made to measure, wait 2 years cues.

[narl]

Take that out of context? Great idea.
Try reading the whole post, you'll see I was making comment a £300 cue. Not the made to measure, wait 2 years cues.

There are 2 made to measure cues that also applies to, special and paragon. As for ultimate's, its more like a 5 year wait if you want a 1 piece.

[ADR147]

Doubtful, for example ultimate's are totally hand planed, it takes hours (certainly more than half a day for this alone) to get the cue from a square to a tapered shaft. You can drastically speed the process up by using an electric planer with absolutely no detriment to the cue, but they stick to the manual hand plane method for that particular cue.

really.... you sure about that?

[narl]

really.... you sure about that?

According to the old parris brochure that's how ultimate's are made, and paragons. It used to be part of their brochure years ago.

https://i.imgur.com/tJhKKCu.png

[ADR147]

According to the old parris brochure that's how ultimate's are made, and paragons. It used to be part of their brochure years ago.

https://i.imgur.com/tJhKKCu.png

well i can tell you 100% just by looking at them that this is not true.

[narl]

well i can tell you 100% just by looking at them that this is not true.

I can't see how that would be possible, to tell the difference between one cue that's meant to be taken down totally by hand vs a cue that's turned on a lathe til its oversized then taken down by hand the rest of the way. Regardless of what way they're started if they're finished the same with, with a hand plane, what would be the telling difference? A totally machine tapered shaft with a conical taper would more than likely be easy to spot as it would roll perfectly flat on a table (as shown in peradons videos). Obviously that's not usually the case with hand made cues, which some of the older players in clubs usually swear are bent as they don't roll flat!