Who likes cues?
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on craigslist this guy has been trying to sell a cue made by helmstetter for 500 bucks, its been on there for months. 0 -
Well, you may be right about that guy, but these aren't his cues, they are mine and I made them and many others completely by hand on a wood lathe. They are professional quality, perfectly straight and not for sale except by custom order. You have never seen these cues before unless someone hacked my pictures and stole them. I am not posting them for sale. So I would appreciate it if you would just delete your post because you are incorrect to the max.
Frogbert (Frank)
The Helmstetter name was bought years ago by a company in Japan and they are mass produced on CNC machines. If you could find a cue really made by Richard Helmstetter is would be worth a tidy sum. Read up.0 -
Beautiful!
I love the bird's eye maple.
I build hunting knives of the same.
Nice work![8D]0 -
very nice work 0 -
Frog, how much would one of your cues run if it were made from birds-eye maple and dark walnut? No super fancy designs. 0 -
Excellent. I'd love to have one, but they're probably too rich for my blood. 0 -
Thanks, guys for the compliments! I'm sorry I didn't get back to post earlier, but I flew to Ft. Worth to buy a car I wanted and drove it back home yesterday. I didn't get the deal finished until after 2:00pm and I visited some and ate there before I drove it the 400 mi. back home. I slept til about 11:00 today and I've got a bunch of stuff to do now, but I'll come back on later and add some more pictures of my little cue operation some of you will like.
Zu:
I made a cue with some black walnut in combination with maple and other woods about 7 years ago, but the wood is light in weight and it's hard to use it in a major way and get up to 18 or 20 ounces in the finished product because I don't artificially weight my cues like the mass manufacturers do, and I never put a steel joint collar on my cues. If I can find some real burly walnut, though, I can accent one with it and make it work, I think.. I'll try to get back on here tonight or at least within in a couple of days and post again.
See you,
F.0 -
Ms.Z,
You've got mail.0 -
about 15 years ago, my buddy showed me one in a catalog he had. black laquered, silverish inlay, the grip was shaped like a battle axe and the grip end was a piece of obsidian....total cost was somewhere in the $10,000 range if I remember right. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Frogbert
Well, you may be right about that guy, but these aren't his cues, they are mine and I made them and many others completely by hand on a wood lathe. They are professional quality, perfectly straight and not for sale except by custom order. You have never seen these cues before unless someone hacked my pictures and stole them. I am not posting them for sale. So I would appreciate it if you would just delete your post because you are incorrect to the max.
Frogbert (Frank)
The Helmstetter name was bought years ago by a company in Japan and they are mass produced on CNC machines. If you could find a cue really made by Richard Helmstetter is would be worth a tidy sum. Read up.
What i said had nothing to do with your cues, i was simply stating a fact, so please remove the cue from wherever it is stuck in your body. Happy Fourth of July![:D]0 -
For those of you who are interested, (and I can't understand why a person would open a topic about cues if he's ignorant as a rock about the art form and by his own words has no interest in the subject) here are the jpegs I was able to get done tonight: 0 -
quote:Hello SuburbanNoize
You received the following message from: Frogbert (frogposter@hotmail.com)
At: http://forums.gunbroker.com/
If it had nothing to do with me why did you post it, stupid? The topic was posted by by me, and is about what I do. You said "This guy..." so right away, anyone who can really use the language would assume that you were talking about me, don't you see? No, you probably don't see. So, God bless you and have the best of luck in the future, you're going to need it.
F.
My post said this guy on craigslist, are you posting on craigslist? if not then the post was not referring to you. [:D]0 -
unhunh. 0 -
those are some beautiful pieces. do you do full pieces or just modular? i'm sorry if i don't know the correct terms. a lot of those available are the ones that screw together. personally i prefer a good solid one piece @ 17 oz. been a long time since i saw craftsmanship like that, thank you for sharing. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by aramisvi
those are some beautiful pieces. do you do full pieces or just modular? i'm sorry if i don't know the correct terms. a lot of those available are the ones that screw together. personally i prefer a good solid one piece @ 17 oz. been a long time since i saw craftsmanship like that, thank you for sharing.
You are most welcome, and thank you for your comment. There are many wonderful and talented cuemakers in America, many of which are way more prolific than I, and you can see some of their work in the Blue Book of Pool Cues by Simpson.
I am a little different in that I have been working developing a cumaking system that uses only the wood lathe for all the turning that I as the cuemaker perform. I do not try to sell to the general public, because I haven't time nor motive for profit, but rather gain a great sense of satisfaction in making really responsive, durable and simple but elegant cues for players that I associate with who ask me to build them one. One of my greatest challenges, early on, was designing and building the jigs with which I make the true "Full-splice" joint that forms the points on the cue. The Black Diamond model is first made "in the square" on the table saw with these full-splice jigs that I made, and only then, when the Bacote, ebony, and Pensylvania hard-rock birdseye maple parts are joined together perfectly with the most high-tech polyester resin glue, including the full ebony veneers on the Bacote points, can I actually turn the piece down and finish the rest of the cuemaking processes.
I have the format for submission to the Blue Book of cues and am qualified for entry there-in, but have never submitted it, much to the dismay of my wife and many of my friends and relatives.[:D]
It's just that most of the cuemakers use CNC machining and their designs are awash with superficial inlays. My cues are not designed with inlays, but are instead constructed as composite turnings. It's a very difficult wood working process, and hours and hours of work can be ruined in a blink of an eye on the lathe, with the slip of the hand holding a skew chisel or if mounted slightly off the centers of the composite, which will make the points uneven in length. I am basically an artist with wood as my primary medium, and the perfect end result is the goal I seek and the satisfaction of achieving a good result my incentive for working. I'm getting too old to do much more of it, and take care of my family and home also.
Sorry to be so long-winded. Thank you and all the rest who can appreciate the difficulty of what I have done, here, and commented so kindly.
Frogbert, (Frank)0 -
Yes, you are correct David Nunn! Happy fourth to you and all the friendly members hereon, and God Bless Travis and all the people on board here who actually served the country or are serving it now, especially. 0 -
goin to a party tonight - they got some nice cues for their pool table. 0 -
Wow, if I only had space for a pooltable (and home bar!) - I'd consider one of those for when I get good at it. Probably won't ever happen.. hehe.
But do love the smell of fresh wood - oh wow.. [^]
Used wood for many things.. always loved the smell of it.0 -
quote:Originally posted by HappyNanoq
Wow, if I only had space for a pooltable (and home bar!) - I'd consider one of those for when I get good at it. Probably won't ever happen.. hehe.
But do love the smell of fresh wood - oh wow.. [^]
Used wood for many things.. always loved the smell of it.
Boy, do I know that feeling. Robert Byrnes Standard Book of Pool and Billiards (I bought it 10 yrs ago) has really helped me. I can't run 526 balls in straight pool, but I run the table at 9-ball more frequently, now. Three racks is my personal best, so far. Some days I can't make anything work, but I guess everybody's like that to some extent.
Jacob,
I hope you have a great time tonight.
F.0 -
FB - now we're talkin'! NO Wraps, NO gaudy inlays.. just beautiful wood. What sort of join do you use? If, by chance you end up with a 16 oz stick that on one wants... I know someone that likes the control a light cue offers.
Happy 4th
Ice0 -
Thanks Ice,
That would be the 5/16x14, 3-inch pollished stainless steel bullet-nosed pin into a solid brass 7/16 od insert. The collars are double black thermoset linen composite, flush with a 5/8" maple core around the pin on the butt and around the insert on the shaft. There is a 3/32 inlet around the pin just wide enough to accomodate a slight jut-out on the insert. The joint is reinforced with two German Silver rings on either side and the combination of those components provides the strongest joint, the best finish and fit, and a true wood-to-wood hit for the most responsive feel you can get. It tightens up real good, hits as solid as a one-piece, and stays that way until you get through and break it down to case it up. I use a quality catalyzed urethane automotive clear coat that's tough and won't yellow over time. You can break and play with this stick with no ill effects on the joint or the ferrule. Of course, the tip will spread more quickly if you break with the same stick you play with, and will require 'flush with the ferrule' side trimming, which everyone who plays above a "B" level knows how to do, no matter what cue they use. A tip that has spread wider that the ferrule is the main reason for the tip popping off during play. I use Le Pro tips exclusively, as do a large percentage of cuemakers. A good tip needs to be medium hard to hard, shaped to the curvature of a nickle edge and evenly roughed to hold the chalk which should be applied in strokes using the edge of the chalk cube, not by drilling a hole in the center of it. It's the chalk that grips the cueball to impart sidespin (English), follow or draw, not the leather. Chalk is the most abrasive substance in the pool room and should be kept off the table edges by setting the chalk cube with the open side up and never tapping the side of the cue on the side of the table like a jerk. The balls and rack being moved across chalk trapped in the table covering is what wears the cloth out. Chalk also dirties the shaft so that it doesn't slide through ones fingers easily. You can always tell an uneducated player by seeing how he has sanded all the sealer and cue wax off his shaft, which is dirty green and he's either wearing a cue glove or making repeated trips to the powder wheel, a thing that is unnecessary to a player who really knows how to care for his shaft. End of lecture.[:D]
Sorry for running on like that, but there are a lot of these guys who love to play pool and though dirty habits don't matter as much around the little coin op tables in the barroom, if you ever get in a real pool room playing on four and a half by nines that cost eight or ten thousand dollars apiece, those kind of habits are very irritating to knowledgeable players and room owners. So, I took this opportunity to clue them in to the higher level.
Now, about that lighter stick. Many players in the pool club I belong to like a lighter cue and I have made several 15 and 16 oz cues for snooker and pool. I use a nineteen for nine and eight ball, and an 18 for snooker and golf with the big balls on the snooker table. We've got players in our club that can run over 50 points of snooker with alarming regularity, and they all like a light, long cue. I made one cue for a BCA certified referee that was 15 oz., 62 inches long, and had a 10mm shaft and tip. That was 7 years ago. I charged him $250.00, and I heard him say to his partner one day that he wouldn't sell it for any amount because it had taken him two decades to get a cuemaker to make one like he wanted it.[:D]
I do only custom orders, at the buyers specifications, and there are no "seconds" for sale. Muellers catalogue has some good, but inexpensive cues that are perfecty capable of a better game than the owners can play anyway. See ya.
F.0
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