cuestick work on a Mark-5

[howienineball]

Have any of you guys ever done any pool cue work on the smitty? I mainly do
retipping, shaft cleaning, ferrule replacement, etc. I would appreciate any information. The price of dedicated cue lathes are excessive for occasional use. Thanks---Howie

[navycop]

Have any of you guys ever done any pool cue work on the smitty? I mainly do
retipping, shaft cleaning, ferrule replacement, etc. I would appreciate any information. The price of dedicated cue lathes are excessive for occasional use. Thanks---Howie
I think it would be like a big pen turning. Get two blanks. Turn them separtely and screw them together. The problem: Where to find the blanks that size?

[jimthej]

I think it would be very possible to work with 2 piece cues on a Shopsmith. You would need some type of soft jawed chuck to hold the large end and a live center that would hold the small end. Possibly some type of jam chuck or leather lined jaws, maybe even at both ends. A collet chuck would work well. The limit of 34" would have to include whatever holding apparatus you use.

[wildcard]

If you can figure out how to make this work please contact me and let me know how you did it. I built my own pool table and it would be very cool to have my own pool cues to go with it.

That being said here are the problems as i see them.

First materials, you might get away with finding a local supplier of lumber that has been dried for at least 1-2 years, i recently found a guy that sold several types of lumber from red oak ro cedar for 0.75 per board foot, and the planks were around an inch thick, so you probably can work with that for the shafts, he also said that he can cut anything i want if i suppply the wood at 0.17 per board foot, he has a bandsaw sawmill. The downside to that is, you have to wait for it to dry.

Unfortunitly some of the newer cue's are made with up to 3-5 different types of wood, allot of them have a core that is different then the wood around it, look up mcdermotte cues to see what i mean, they start around $125-150 and have a lifetime warranty, so i am not sure how much of a market you would have for custom cues above that price range, but if you were like me and just wanted the novelty of cues you made yourself, that doesnt enter into it . I also dont see any way to replicate how they make them at home, even if you had a dedicated cue lathe.

As you already do some cue repair work my guess is you know where to get the rest of the parts you would need, that would be nice information to have as well.

[paul269]

I would look into making or finding a center steady (AKA Steady rest). Any long and thin turning would require one to prevent the wood from flexing in the middle.

I personally have not made one but have seen them in use.

I did a quick google search and found this: http://azwoodturners.org/SteadyRest.pdf

I sure you can find other plans on internet. Not sure if there are any in the sawdust sessions.

[hb2]

About 15 years ago for Christmas I gave my nephew a ferrule and the connecting joint along with a note that I would have him over to my house for the weekend and we would build him a cue. He was about 13 at the time and was getting to be a pretty good player as well as showing an interest in woodworking. At the time I bought the supplies from Golden Shark in Euless Texas.

The wood was no big problem we used some cherry that I bought from a local lumber yard. We did use a steady rest but it is a easy project. To go along with the cue and to fill out the weekend we built a finger jointed walnut case from some walnut I had laying around.

Both nephew and uncle had a great time.

[Ed in Tampa]

My neighbor is a woman's pool player (she travels to touraments) I was looking at her various pool magazines and almost all list mandrels that screw into the male or female socket end of the pool cue. These mandles are then clamped into a lathe vise clamp or ordered with #1 o r#2 morris taper.

Pool cues are made almost like fly rods, wedged shaped pieces glued together to make the shaft. Most big pool supply houses sell raw blanks, the turning mandrels used attach the cues to a Lathe and just about everything else needed to turn a cue.

I was thinking about turning some cues but I noticed most of hers have very very intricate inlays. If your are really interested pick up one or two of the popular and common pool magazines and you will have more info on this subject than you need to get started.


editted to change trunnions to mandrels and make wording understandable.

[wildcard]

Thought i would try and contribute to your efforts this time instead of saying things you probably alrady knew.

Here is a site that has pool cue blanks, i found it with a google search for pool cue blanks, there were many other things, but this was the first that specifically said they had them
http://www.exoticwoodgroup.com/order_pool_cue_blanks.htm

And from a google search for pool cue turning i found this
http://www.finewoodworking.com/ProjectsAndDesign/ProjectsAndDesignPDF.aspx?id=2147

hope these help