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Well I said I would post pictures of some of the pool cues I have built so far, this one is a plain cue I finished, highly figured black walnut forearm and handle with a maple butt sleeve. Nothing fancy and the only inlays are silver rings and black walnut rings.
The one I'm working on now is going to take a few weeks, its a 4 prong black palm wood into maple butt with maple butt sleeve and has 4 black walnut windows. I am inlaying 4 large ivory diamonds in the windows and points plus many smaller ivory dots in the ring work. I'll take a picture in a few of my progress.
I just finished turning down the inlays in the butt sleeve and I'll be inlaying the elephant ivory diamonds before the day ends, I still need to do the final sand and cut the dowel for the joint and install another ring, butt cap and do the inlay in the rings before i can put on the finish and wrap the handle with irish linen.
Very Nice, Rcm58. How long does it take you to complete a stick? Keep it up!
The completed one took me about 3 weekends to finish. The one I'm working on now I started 3 weeks ago. I want to build it the old way so instead of CNC or a hand held router and template I'm cutting the inlays by hand. I hope to finish it in a few weeks. I'm really very new to this so I read more than do so far but Its interesting. Thanks for the encouragement.
I did the Ivory in the Black walnut windows and put a light coat of sealer on to keep it from checking because it will be Saturday before I do any more work on it.
Next I will inlay the ivory diamonds in the points above where the wrap goes.
Curious - is there a certain wood that makes for a "better" cue, in your opinion so far?
That is some very good work you've done there. Be interesting to see your work as you progress even further - please update this thread as you make new styles, etc. Admire your dedication and workmanship.
Straight grained maple is best as far as playability,plus when finished they weigh between 17-18 ounces and don't need any or much artificial weighting so they balance well. Maple also offers so may varieties with enough differences to make it interesting. The piece i'm using on the butt sleeve has a tiger strip that shows up better when the finish is applied, birdseye maple is probably the most popular, burl maple is beautiful and I found a piece of spalted maple I'm saving, it has all kinds of color and mineral streaks running through it.
The shafts of ultra high end cues are tight grained maple, some with as many as 35 growth rings per inch, very rare. Its interesting because there isn't a large enough supply of this stuff for any company to offer it in there cues so they laminate shafts to achieve the same result.
Thanks ShadowCarver and I will update it. I find the industry interesting because I could probably build a world class cue for around $75 dollars, plain but effective, but throw in exotic woods, ringwork, ivory and a fancy wrap and you can spend upwards of $3500 on the retail level and in some cases be on an 8 year waiting list. Function and Art.
I'm sorry the last pool cue I had up here someone offered me $800 for so I didn't take pictures. The pictures here are of the cue I'm making with my sons old mahogany, real tight grained old growth stuff, my guess is 100 plus year old trees, its amazing wood with the ark of the grain pattern suggesting trees in excess of 8 to 10 ft wide. The pictures are of a plain cue i'm working on made of old growth mahogany with solid ebony butt cap and joint ring. After I post this i'm finishing the sanding, epoxy sealant, final sanding and urathane overcoat and buffing, this one will have a 5/16x18 pin.
Oh and no wrap on this cue. unlike most cues I build this is a solid butt cue. most cues are 3 piece with a butt, handle and forearm which are bored and epoxied together then turned, some are done this way to reduce weight some are done to increase strength. This wood is very dense and after I'm finished I may have to bore the butt end to reduce weight further.
This is the cue after sanding and the first coat of Polyurathane, every four hours today i'll be resanding between coats to build up about 5 smooth coats to give it that glass like finish. The pictue is the butt end and I will remove the dowel end and install a rubber bumper.
Last edited by Rcm58; 07-16-2008 at 08:34 AM..
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