Today on Studiotronics, we're building a full-spliced pool cue. Thanks for watching I recommend Daisy for carbon fiber shaft tubes: www.carbonfibercue.com/ #woodworking #pool
As a person who watched is father wood work for 40 years and have done it myself for a number of years....taking on pool cues is another level of craftsmanship. Kudos
Nice work! As an aside, I obtained a booklet many, many years ago from Atlas Billiard Supply written by Burton Spain, wherein he described his full-splice blanks. Spain made full-splice blanks for many of the top makers (like Szamboti, Rambow, and Balabushka). He sold his equipment to, and trained a man named Joel Hercek who still makes cues. The booklet didn't have any real details of the jigs required but it did show how the wood was cut and how the two pieces fit together. Bob Dzuricky has a video of some experimenting he and another cuemaker did with full-splice cues.
He made my full splice cue, sadly I took to long on a pawn. Father ordered it for me. Joel good guy. And he did mine out of a very tough material I don't think many could do it. Palm wood. Really hard to lathe or get a good finish on it.
I cannot begin to say how much I enjoyed watching this video. I am local to ATX area myself and knowing there is someone close that has the knowledge and skills to create beautiful works of art is amazing. I know quite a few people (myself included) that would be interested in meeting you, playing a few games, and would most certainly be interested in adding such a wonderful piece of art to our cue bags.
Wow... nice work! You are right, there is no info on doing full splice cues. I figured the way you did it is as it should be. I am no where near ready to do full splice yet. Hope to learn more from your videos. Keep it up.
You aren’t wrong about there not being any information on doing a full splice. I researched out of curiosity a few years ago and all I could find were pics of the prepared pieces. Well done, sir.
I definitely want a cue before the wait list gets too long. I can't afford a full splice or crazy inlay, but I'd love a torrified/roasted curly maple cue with natural wood rings, and black phenolic joints/ferrule/butt cap. :)
Hey your work is awesome man but I noticed that you don’t put on any eye protection. Pls put on a safety glasses or googles, you never know when accidents happen so you need to prepare for it.
There IS literature on building full splice cues and also a few videos. You have to look on AZ Billiards Forum or buy instructional material from cue makers like Chris Hightower and Joe Barringer for example. Everything about building all aspects of a cue are covered if you know where to find the details.
A lot of work, for sure. I would like to have seen how the two pieces fit together. How they mate. Like a wildlife documentary. They always show the mating.
Few questions. Before pool cues did you have a bunch of the machinery already and pretty skilled in woodworking? Also how much h time avg not including g waiting for curing does it take for "you" to make a full splice cue butt? Also how much time for a 3 piece splice butt? That way I can figure out how long would take me when proficient so I can see time wise for value added to material costs. Just trying to get an idea the added cost of "your" or "my" time above material costs when building a cue.
Heya Nick, yea I had all the machinery minus the lathes before cue making. I had a passion for woodworking - mainly furniture and home improvements. Good question about the avg time. That’s what pool cues are- it’s never an issue with margin and cost of material. It’s time. It’s incredibly time consuming and lengthy. But it’s too nebulous to sit and keep track of how long. While one thing is curing on cue 1, I have something else cutting on cue 2, while sketching an idea for cue 3. Lots of overlap. And time is significantly influenced by experience. A good example is wraps. A leather wrap would take me 45 minutes or so. I’ve seen guys do it in 10 minutes.
Is it possible to use less veneer width so that there’s not so much being trimmed off and wasted? Seems like a lot of excess material there… I can’t afford to waste that much haha also what are the sizes of the planed timbers you begin the process of cutting & joining? I’m at around 37 mm sq.. just wonder wether it’s any easier to get the joint done with a bit extra meat there… or if there’s a sweet spot for this size you’ve found?
What advantages do full splice cues have in terms of performance and feel over other cue designs? I see companies like Predator who advertise the consistency and feel of their P3 30 piece design, as well as Exceed Cues who use and advertise a Dual Core Power design, none of which are full spliced if I'm not mistaken, and I can't help but wonder what the differences are and how each performs and feels. What are cue makers thoughts on this? Is True Splice construction the end all be all of top tier performance or are there multiple methods that perform equally as well?
Morning Thomas. Normal modern cues are attached together using a tenon and screw. Full spliced cues are attached together by gluing all that surface area afforded by joining these prongs together. After assembly, a full splice cue is a single piece. Full stop. If the cue maker is competent, they’re both solid means of construction. But if I’m in a bar fight, I’m grabbing the full splice every time. As a woodworker, agnostic of being a pool player, it’s simply smarter better construction. But it’s harder to do. More skill is involved. And wood choice is harder. You need much longer pieces of lumber. Which means more expensive. Can you notice a difference in feel when playing? I can. Absolutely. Will it make you a better pool player? No. Probably not. Predator is a massive international company with an entire team dedicated to marketing. In reality their wood is trash. Their designs are often painted on. Putting predator cues on a lathe is telling. They wobble which tells me shoddy construction and speed to get things out of the door are the biggest motivators. It’s a numbers game for them. As for exceed cues, I haven’t seen any equivalent of the posts from predator players showing their painted fake cues. But Dual Core Power Design is marketing mumbo jumbo. That $600 carbon fiber shaft was purchased in China for $10 and filled with Home Depot foam. Weight was added. Often with a weight bolt affixed inside. Cue makers have taken every single carbon fiber shaft available on the market and ripped them open and dissected them. It’s the same for all of them. So when you read things like Dual Core Power, be weary.
Thank you for the response. I've always been interested in full splice construction but they're harder to come by yet alone get some time to hit with one. And yes, I know it's a numbers game for predator and they do not have the ability to give each cue close and careful attention the way an individual cue maker would be able.@@Studiotronics
@@Studiotronics AMEN to this, I'm also a custom cue maker herein Ontario Canada as well and agree 1000% about the Predator garbage out here! MASS produced and inferior woods. As you mention its all hype and millions spend on marketing, like come-on, who pays $600 for a jump cue, like seriously? ( OK who has the audacity to even charge that = Predator) Your designs are very nice and well crafted to say the least. I like your jig for the veneers, which I have one similar for my CNC as well. I'm currently designing a fully adjustable jig right now that mounts to the band saw made out of aluminum and will cut the angles. The one I'd love to come up with for the band saw is the veneer cutting jig, which, with a bit of tweaking I think I can design by utilizing the full splice jig itself. I'm trying to make an "all in one" type situation for the receiver section of the full splice which is rather difficult but in my mind achievable.
I recreated a version of the bandsaw jig you made, but after making my first test piece, I realized that making the angled cut on all four faces of the blank, using only one side of the jig, is enough. Why did you make your jig so you can switch the side the blank is clamped to? Am I missing something?
Dude I love that you made it. That makes my day! I wanted options. Would I prefer sawing on one side or the other? What if the blade im using starts drifting left, or right. What if a camera angle looks better one direction, etc…The amount of work needed to make it reversible was minimal and I figured it couldn’t hurt. So you were able to find the right angle based on your forearm grooves?
@@Studiotronics That makes sense. I haven't made the forearm yet, but I took some measurements of different pool cues I had laying around and choose an angle, so I'll just use that when I make the forearm as well. I don't have a cnc router though, so I'm going to try to make a table saw jig to make two compound angle cuts to remove each corner. That jig is still just an idea though, hopefully it all works out.
@Studiotronics well few of those look very nice. Bet would still look great with epoxy on them even not finished just for veneer reference if someone liked the pattern.
