Thread: Pool Cues (Work in Progress).

Well, I pulled the bubinga cue out of the clamps, and realised I had glued the wrong piece of pine to the bottom of the cue.

This means there just isn't enough "puddin" at what was to be the "butt" end of the cue.

This is just a minor "cue-tastrophy", as I can always glue some more wood on later.

This is how plain cues often end up becoming fancy cues....covering up your .....um....coming up with new ideas !!

Well, time for work to commence on the 3 other cues.

First up, ran a light pass over them on the lathe to be sure there had been no warpage since last time I wouked on them. Picture shows lots of pencil scribble on the rosewood butt. If I do a pass on it, and there is any pencil left behind, then it has warped a little and is no longer true.

Fortunately all three butts are still straight.

Second, going to mill off the sides of the rock maple butt. These "milled" off areas, will form the basis of the butterfly design, once new different coloured wood takes their place.

This is done by offseting the tailstock on the lathe, locking the headstock down in one of the 24 indexing slots, changing the router bit to one which will cut a nice flat section, and just basically fiddeling around with a few settings till the bits I am cutting off look about how I want them too. (Not very scientific I know)

So, two sides are milled off, and some padauk is glued on.

Tommorow, turn it round again, then repeat...

Last couple of pictures of glue-up.

When tightening the last clamp, I heard a strange cracking spliting sound I didn't like much.

Will have to wait until tommorow to find out what is was though....

Just having a thought on this thread.

Each and every operation could have an ESSAY written about it.

But I know I usually skip posts with too much writing, however - I like to look at pictures. (Picture worth a thousand words kind of thing)

So thats what I have been doing so far.

If anyone has any questions about what I'm doing and why, what equipment I'm using, what glues I use etc, just let me know, and I'll be happy to answer.

Many things, will, however, become more apparent as the project goes on.

Cheers.

This is starting to look interesting - great thread, keep it going with the pics please.

This is looking good purplehart,
Thanks for doing the WIP post it is really interesting

Those cues are starting to look like something...

Top effort mate keep up the good work.

Well, took the clamps off the rock maple butt.

Seems the nasty noise was a crack appearing in the padauk. Always a risk when gluing a thin flat bit to a bit that is mostly round.

Probably most of the effected area will turn out, but it has been filled with lots of thin super glue anyway.

Oh well, no more work on that one today.

just out of curiousity, what glue are you using?

At this stage, for glueing the laminations and pieces together I am using the Yellow Saligna PVR Glue from Timbecon.

This has worked well in the past.

The timber seems to shatter before the glue bond breaks when you try and prise something apart after glueing.

If you clamp it up nice and tight, and don't use the wrong coloured woods together, you don't get any gluelines.

As the butt of the cue will be sealed in the final finishing process, it will not be exposed to any moisture from the hands of the player.

When I first stated building cues, some of the Yank cuemakers I had spoked to were using the Titebond, but that was not available (or I couldn't find it) at that point in time.

Cheers

Started work on the birds eye butt this afternoon.

Milled off the four sides on this one, as it will have a different pattern to the rock maple cue.

Very carefully glued 2 of the thin strips of padauk on (No cracking noises this time).

Had a bit of extra time, so I turned down the bubinga butt.

You can see the pattern (butterflies) now, as well as the problem I thought would arise by gluing on the wrong piece of wood at the bottom.

I have a solution in mind though.....

Enthralled! Keep it coming Purple!

G'day Purpleheart,

Very impressive. The amount of skill shown by the people in here is impressive to say the least and the variety likewise. Keep it coming.

The birds eye but, which had 2 strips of padauk glued on to the core yesterday, came out of the clamps ok.

The excess was sanded off on the belt sander. Have to be careful here, as one little slip up would be bad news.

2 more strips of padauk have been glued on the other 2 sides. Soon it will be a core of birds eye, wrapped up in padauk. This is how I make what I call a "dissapearing butterfly", as when other wood is added, the padauk will seemingly just dissappear into the cue.