Help needed!

[frankenbike]

Firstly i'll apologies for another one of these questions but im having doubts n need your advice! I'm in need of a new cue but on a low budget. Anything wll be a step up from what i am playing with at the moment but I want to spend about £30 - 45 depending if it comes with a case.

Should i avoid BCE heritage cues? There is an offer on the Ronnie RSC5 model with extension and case for £60. worth it? or the jimmy white heritage models for £43. Spending any more than this is nearly impossible but as my cue has become damaged i am either having to play with bent cues from the local clubs or buy my own. What about Riley cues? Again should they be avoided?

If there are any alternatives that anyone can suggest for upto £45....unless if its a really good offer/cue then up to the £60 then please suggest them as i get the impression that the cues i have mentioned above are looked down upon! lol

sorry for my lack of wisdom. Hope you can help.

kind regards,
frankenbike :confused:

[Jay1]

Hiya mate. I'm in a similar boat as you and have put a post up aswell. To start with I was only going to spend 50 or 60 quid, but have decided if i'm gonna get a half decent cue I'm gonna stretch as far as I can, which for me is about £100.

I was looking at the packages on here to start with, they seem decent enough value, but I honestly have no ide about the quality of the cues, as I am no expert whatsoever. Check the link hopefully it's some help

http://www.topcue.co.uk/shop/

[frankenbike]

The 2 sites below seem pretty good as well. They are where i have found what appear to be the best deals for the price range i am at.

http://www.bbbilliards.co.uk
http://www.rightoncue.co.uk

Hope they are some help to you. I've read up on forums about differences in cues and i'm pretty certain on what i want. The BCE heritage cues sell themselves well but really have no idea of quality. In reality i play about once every week or two and the cue ive been playin with for the past 9 years cost about £20 and i can honestly say its a good enough cue. I play well with it and have not played with a cue i can play better with but i think thats prob just down to what i have got used 2.

The main thing i want to know is....Just how good/bad are the BCE and Rileys cues? They are obviously not going to compete against cues 3 times the price but is the quality that bad?

cheers

[Jay1]

There seem to be a fair few sites then that do these type of cues at similar prices.

I honestly have no idea about the quality of the cues you're looking at. All I can say is I have a Ronnie O'sulivan BCE cue, which I got from JJB for about 30quid a couple of years or so ago. It aint to bad to be honest, but the grain either side of the joint doesn't match up, it can get a little sticky, and you really notice the difference if you hit a half decent cue. My dad has a single piece cue, that aint anything too special but feels a lot more solid than mine. Thats one of the main reasons i'm looking to upgrade.

[frankenbike]

cheers. im goin to the local club tonight so i may see if they have any more expensive cue's they'll let me have a try with so i can compair a little. would you advise or anyone else that reads this advise that i look at sports shops in my area to buy a cue from so i can actually see the quality in person than to take a risk over the net?

[Jamesp]

Unless your willing to spend £150 plus u won't find a decent new cue.

You might however pick up a good second hand one of someone who is getting rid of theirs, you need someone with you though who knows about cues.

[Jay1]

@ JamesP I find that somewhat hard to believe to be honest mate.

Fair enough you may need to spend that amount upwards to be looking at really top notch kit, but I can't see how a £60 cue will not be considerably better than a £20 one, or a £100 better than a £50.

Thats like saying you need to buy a porsche 911 GT2 if you want a decent car. When in reality a mondeo, although not fancy is a perfectly decent car. Probably a bit of a wild comparison but you know what I mean.

[frankenbike]

I agree with you Jay1, even if i had £150 spare to spend on a cue i wouldnt. Snooker isnt my first sport and i play it because i enjoy it. You may be able to have a little more confidence with a £150 cue, but give an amatuer a £150 cue or a £20 cue and the results will be very similar! Some sports its very different....but in snooker and at the level that most people play at knowing what the cue will do is down to experience of playing with the cue over the quality of it. correct me if i am wrong though.

At the end of the day, for how often i play and the level i play at, i feel that £45 is enough to pay to get a cue that will do the job i want it 2 and will last a while. I want it to have a smooth action and a good tip. The rest i leave to my ability as a player.

[frankenbike]

I agree with you Jay1, even if i had £150 spare to spend on a cue i wouldnt. Snooker isnt my first sport and i play it because i enjoy it. You may be able to have a little more confidence with a £150 cue, but give an amatuer a £150 cue or a £20 cue and the results will be very similar! Some sports its very different....but in snooker and at the level that most people play at knowing what the cue will do is down to experience of playing with the cue over the quality of it. correct me if i am wrong though.

At the end of the day, for how often i play and the level i play at, i feel that £45 is enough to pay to get a cue that will do the job i want it 2 and will last a while. I want it to have a smooth action and a good tip. The rest i leave to my ability as a player.

[cueman]

The £150 quote for a quality cue is over the top really, I certainly think that you can find a good quality cue for cheaper, its not like you need something absolutely top of the range like you say. The main thing you want in a cue is its solid, well made and made from good quality timber. The thing I find with BCE and Riley cues and particularly any cues in sports shops is the wood quite often is any two pieces just screwed together, if the grain in the ash doesn't match, stay well clear. Also these cheapo cues are just that, the wood is poor, feels almost like plastic and won't give a good response when striking the ball. Snooker is all about touch and feel, if the cue doesn't give you that then its a bad un! Though the tips on new cues also play a large part, a bad tip is sometimes worse than a bad cue.
Truth is though, the more you spend on a cue, the better quality you should be getting, anything over £75 and you should be getting a decent stick but I'll doubt you will find anything for much less than that.

[Jay1]

Good post cueman. Thats kinda along the lines of what I was thinking.

Like Frankenbike Snooker isn't my main sport, but I have got really into it since I started playing again. I don't want to spend the earth on my cue but I want to buy something I know I can trust and which I can expect me to last a good while if I look after it. Thats why I set my budget at around the £100 mark, as I had kind of guessed that the more mass produced cues like Riley and BCE may well use inferior materials. I'm guessint that you find quite a jump in the quality between £50-£100. I may be completely wrong but that was my thinking on setting my budget.

I think this is what Frankenbike is looking for though, some confirmation as to whether the particular cues he's looking at are worth it. Is it worth spending £50 over £30 for example. Obviously you guys opinions seems to be that £75 upwards is where we should be looking, but at the other end, is one "cheapie" going to be much bet than the other.

[frankenbike]

thanks jay1 and cueman. gettin a little clearer for me now.

I think the thing thats most confusing comes down to all the buzz words that the mass produced cues use. such as Grade A ash or premium quality ash, xs shaft thats treated with a unique resin and coated in a special french wax. I presume the majority of this is either common on pretty much every cue...or means nothing to how the cue performs n just sounds impresive to confuse the likes of me!

can i give you examples of the cues i'm looking at and will someone tell me if they are good or not? and maybe give me an alternative or two that you feel are better.

http://www.rightoncue.co.uk/product_info.php/cPath/34_72/products_id/123
http://www.bbbilliards.co.uk/cuebutts/cue143.gif
http://www.rightoncue.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/699

im hoping that this will help me in understanding what is standard to all cues and what may actually be a good thing to have in a cues at the price i'm looking at. The cues that seem the best to me are the heritage still but thats only because of the buzz words i mentioned.

thank you again for your help!

[Jay1]

Like I said before mate I aint no expert but I would guess that all 3 of them will be very much alike. Whether they are any good or not I have no idea. My current cue is a BCE Ronnie Osulivan signature jobbie and I would class it as being ok. Nothing great and you really can tell the difference when you use a half decent cue instead. I am guessing the ones you have posted will be a model up from mine which I think was around £30 when I got it. At the very least maybe the grain lines up on them ones but I wouldn't like to say.

My cue is just 2 different bits of wood as the grain in the top section and that in the bottom will not line up, if those cues are the same then I would avoid them and try and scrape a few more notes together. It's easy to see that you will lose feel and consistency if you are playing with a missmatched cue as the 2 halves could have completely different caracteristics.

As for the buzz words of high grade wood etc, i'd completely ignore that. A cue at that price range obviously aint going to have the best of the wood selection used in it, but they aint exactly going to market them as, "not bad wood from our stock that didn't make it to the good cues pile" are they :)

Again I'm no more clued up on this than you, so hopefully someone with a bit more no-how will be along, but those are my thoughts for what they're worth.

[cueman]

There is a forum member on here, Greenbaize, who has his own shop and will be able to guide you much better than I can as he has about 300 odd cues. I can't really judge any cue based on a description and picture, as you may well know, a cue is a personal thing, there is no such thing as a cue to suit every player. Designs/splices on the butt do nothing to how it performs. What I notice about cues that are endorsed by players such as the ones you listed, i.e. White and Hunter, I'd stay clear of, they are just using the names to attract buyers, truth is these cues are probably poor quality and would certainly be more of a gamble than say a quality Mastercue for 69 pound that I showed Jay on the other thread. I'd much rather spend a little extra and know I'm getting a decent cue, than spend 30-40 pounds on a cue which I might hate simply because you can't trust the quality of materials used.
Should also add it all depends how much you are going to play too. If you are looking for a decent cue and want to improve your game and play regularly then it would be better spending as much as you can afford. If you are just playing because its been on the TV and will only play once a month then don't spend as much.

[frankenbike]

cheers ppl! you'v helped lots. I am currently playing once a week as its all i'm able 2 n hoping to keep playing once a week for as long as i can. I'll have a look at the cues and prices you'v mentioned.

[frankenbike]

One last question. If you could get a cheaper hand spliced cue...such as...

http://royalsnooker.com/html/snooker_cues_elegance.html

or a more expensive machine spliced cue such as...

http://www.craftsmancues.com/acatalog/Lewis___Wilson_cues.html
or
http://www.craftsmancues.com/acatalog/Barracuda_cues.html (the £55 cue)

then which would be the better to go for?
does anyone know about or play with any of the cues above?

thinkin that if i can up my budget slightly and get a hand spliced cue then would it be worth it?

thanks again for all your help

[Jay1]

Hey again mate. I've been doing some research of my own today that might help you on those questions.

A cheaper Hand splice cue, such as that Baracuda, is likely to be imported. Some of these cues are not of the greatest quality, they can use inferior ebony buts and not the best ash in the shafts. Although equally they can be just as good as their uk counterparts. The feeling I got from the people I spoke to is that they are more hit and miss and less of a sure thing than a UK hand spliced cue.

One of the benefits of hand sliced from a decent manufacturer is that they often chose a higher quality shaft for their hand splice cues, however this isn't always the case. You can find equally good shafts in a machine spliced cue. The thing is though, if you are buying blind (over the net for example) a hand splice from a decent manufacturer is more likely to have superior wood in the shaft.

Having said that if you can look at the cues, or trust the person you are buying from to pick you out a decent one from their stock, you can get just as good a cue in machine spliced form. Often the only reason for the added cost of hand splicing is the amount of work they take, and nothing to do with the woods used. At the end of the day, if you can be confident that the cue has a good shaft, thats what matters. If it's straight and has nice straight grain ash and is nicely balanced then it shouldn't matter too much whether it's hand or machine spliced, not at the prices we're looking at any way.

2 guys I spoke to are Stu at http://greenbaize.com and Robert at http://bluemoonleisure.com

Both were really really helpful. Greenbaize seem to have an excellent selection of decent cues and a few at the lower end of the market. Stu is an ex pro player aswell so obviously knows his stuff. Bluemoon have a widerrange at the sort of prices you are looking at, including a couple of cheaper hand spliced like the Baracuda. Roberts opinion was though that a decent machine spliced, like one of the mastercues (or their own branded ones that are made by mastercue) would be a better allround cue. And he would go through and hand pick you one so you know you are getting something decent. Also both said if they send out and you don't like, just send it back no problems at all.

I would suggest giving one of them a call for some advice. Like I said both very very helpful.

[frankenbike]

again that helps a lot! sounds daft goin through all these questions for the amount i want to spend but at least the information will be there in future as well for if i do get more into it and want a more expensive cue! and im hoping that even at my budget that my money is well spent!

cheers for the help! i'll look at the two sites and make sure i mention the help i've received from this forum if i get things from them!

[Jay1]

I would seriously suggest making a couple of calls. It's all well getting advice on here but it's supprising what you learn when you actually talk to someone who knows there stuff and they can answer your questions straight up. I really appreciated the advice I got on here and found out bits and bobs elsewhere on line, but just by asking questions of those 2 guys this morning I learnt so much more.

[GreenBaize]

no problem glad to help ;)

[frankenbike]

Hi GreenBaize,
I've just sent an email to the email address on your website containing a few questions. I know email aint the best way to get intouch but i im tryin 2 fit all this in whilst working! lol, im a man....multitasking isnt natural 2 me and i find emails easier! :o

cheers :)

[frankenbike]

And Jay.....thanks again mate! your information so far has taken me a long way! never knew it was this complicated!!!