'Hand Made' Cues - Do they have any inherent value?

[billabong]

yep we can't buy the ash for that !

. . and they've either used a machine for the splicing, or they've taken advice from

Andy Hunter about cutting out machine style splices by hand . . .

[Big Splash!]

^Hmmm, specsavers? :biggrin-new:

[billabong]

^Hmmm, specsavers? :biggrin-new:

HHmmmm ^^^^^^ just writing to add to post count ?

[bolton-cueman]

^Hmmm, specsavers? :biggrin-new:

I take it that Master Blaster is back in the land of living then?

wonder if his fictitious twin will also make an appearance

[Big Splash!]

End of the day, none of this lot owns an AD hand made cue and plays with it, so they're talking from ZERO comparative experience. IMO, an AD plays better than a JPU or any other KD cue I've owned. Ramon agreed, and he's owned everything, even laminated shaft cues. If anyone who owns an AD cue would like to comment from a viewpoint of evidence and experience, please feel free.

@Bolton, 2V is very real. His dad bought a snooker club. I got an email and his JPU is now entering it's second year of wait, just one more to go bud.

[itsnoteasy]

End of the day, none of this lot owns an AD hand made cue and plays with it, so they're talking from ZERO comparative experience. IMO, an AD plays better than a JPU or any other KD cue I've owned. Ramon agreed, and he's owned everything, even laminated shaft cues. If anyone who owns an AD cue would like to comment from a viewpoint of evidence and experience, please feel free.

@Bolton, 2V is very real. His dad bought a snooker club. I got an email and his JPU is now entering it's second year of wait, just one more to go bud.

Not true, did you not see the pictures from the daily mail he used, to post up as himself and his twin at a snooker match, turned out it was two folk at a wedding a dodgy wedding at that, or something along those lines.
Think it was Markz that busted that troll.
Very sorry it was MikeyD that busted him, my apologies .

[Big Splash!]

He's real. I know where he lives and his dad has bought a snooker club and runs comps. I'm not at liberty to say where but on me mom's honour, he's real. His dad used to own a chain of pubs, totally minted. The pics, yeah, they were bogus. :biggrin-new: He'd ordered cues off everyone, including MW. When that Parris drops (though NASA may get to Mars first knowing JP) folk are gonna be like, wowsers.

[itsnoteasy]

Doubt who ever he is, or pretends to be, he will get back on here after his rant, unless of course he comes back on under another name , but who would do that !

[jimmymoller]

End of the day, none of this lot owns an AD hand made cue and plays with it, so they're talking from ZERO comparative experience.

Wrong again pal I own a few.

IMO, an AD plays better than a JPU or any other KD cue I've owned.

Wrong yet again. Cues don't play anything pal. Put one on any table and tell it to pot anything and it wont budge.

Ramon agreed, and he's owned everything, even laminated shaft cues.

Well your the head muppet so is Ramon Miss Piggy?

If anyone who owns an AD cue would like to comment from a viewpoint of evidence and experience, please feel free.

I have done as have others and you take the prize for talking the biggest cobblers on this site since it opened.

[Big Splash!]

Doubt who ever he is, or pretends to be, he will get back on here after his rant, unless of course he comes back on under another name , but who would do that !

haha, where did he blast?

[itsnoteasy]

I am more and more convinced there are only about fifteen people on here, the rest are just accounts by the same person. It's getting to the stage where I am not convinced If am just someone else's duplicate account!
Back on subject, what exactly do you think is the difference between air dried and kiln dried, I have had really dead poker stiff cues and one really whippy thing and am now playing with what I would call a springy cue, Byrom played with my Omin and called it lively, but they are all kiln dried, so is it not just the individual piece of wood that makes the difference, not how it gets to the stage of being ready to work with.

[Big Splash!]

I am more and more convinced there are only about fifteen people on here, the rest are just accounts by the same person. It's getting to the stage where I am not convinced If am just someone else's duplicate account!
Back on subject, what exactly do you think is the difference between air dried and kiln dried, I have had really dead poker stiff cues and one really whippy thing and am now playing with what I would call a springy cue, Byrom played with my Omin and called it lively, but they are all kiln dried, so is it not just the individual piece of wood that makes the difference, not how it gets to the stage of being ready to work with.

haha, nah, I reckon there are 200 regular viewers on average, less writers obviously.

Ok, I may have painted a simplified picture as some folk don't understand technicalities. Steam kilns at 60-80 degrees have shown signs of damaging the cellular structure of wood. Hot air kilns at 30 degrees don't do this so much, they're gentler but drying the wood this way takes much longer and it's more expensive. If you pull the wood out of a hot air kiln after a month or so at 25% humidity and then rest it, and dry it in stacks, you get something similar to air-dried BUT still not as good. The problem is that it is more expensive to dry timber this way. How much ash is hot air dried is moot and which cue makers can get it is also moot, I suspect most don't even know what they are buying if they actually buying anything and not just importing shafts and nearly finished cues from Thailand. The real clunkers of cues obviously use steam dried ash and we can all feel those cues, they're horrible. To be fair, they cost £50 so you get what you pay for.

The great woodworkers have found that steam dried results in brittle wood that splinters and is horrible to plane. Whereas AD is smoother to carve, a joy to work with.

In short, a cue with life in it probably hasn't been steam dried as a board. Those that are dead probably have. If they've been air-dried properly they should always have feel and life. So the picture isn't so simple. But, an AD board or cue will continue to mature in a way that a KD cue won't because the air-drying process, though tapering after a square is cut, continues with an AD cue because it has no case hardening to stop this. Take my Purist for example. It's now in its 31st year of maturing. When it gets to 50, it may be good enough to be called a Pro Ultimate.

@Moller; which AD cues do you have mate?

[itsnoteasy]

haha, nah, I reckon there are 200 regular viewers on average, less writers obviously.

Ok, I may have painted a simplified picture as some folk don't understand technicalities. Steam kilns at 60-80 degrees have shown signs of damaging the cellular structure of wood. Hot air kilns at 30 degrees don't do this so much, they're gentler but drying the wood this way takes much longer and it's more expensive. If you pull the wood out of a hot air kiln after a month or so at 25% humidity and then rest it, and dry it in stacks, you get something similar to air-dried BUT still not as good. The problem is that it is more expensive to dry timber this way. How much ash is hot air dried is moot and which cue makers can get it is also moot, I suspect most don't even know what they are buying if they actually buying anything and not just importing shafts and nearly finished cues from Thailand. The real clunkers of cues obviously use steam dried ash and we can all feel those cues, they're horrible. To be fair, they cost £50 so you get what you pay for.

The great woodworkers have found that steam dried results in brittle wood that splinters and is horrible to plane. Whereas AD is smoother to carve, a joy to work with.

In short, a cue with life in it probably hasn't been steam dried as a board. Those that are dead probably have. If they've been air-dried properly they should always have feel and life. So the picture isn't so simple. But, an AD board or cue will continue to mature in a way that a KD cue won't because the air-drying process, though tapering after a square is cut, continues with an AD cue because it has no case hardening to stop this. Take my Purist for example. It's now in its 31st year of maturing. When it gets to 50, it may be good enough to be called a Pro Ultimate.

@Moller; which AD cues do you have mate?

But in what way does that make the cues play better? There has to be some poor cues made from all types of timber, which brings me back to ,is it not just the individual piece of wood as to whether you get a nice playing cue with a bit of life, or one to whippy or too stiff( there again that's personal taste as well). What are the playing characteristics that every AD cue has over every KD cue? Is it that they will mature with age therefore get a better hit? Or something like that, but a kiln dried won't.

[jimmymoller]

I've no idea which of my cues are air dried but I would expect a couple of old ones I have were. The one is as whippy as hell but you can see that as it's a really slim taper the other is a Riley Tombstone probably 60 years old.
Okay on some molecular level there may be a difference but it's so minute your the only one who can tell a difference, The rest of us have more important things to consider when playing.

As for steaming making for a brittle wood you've never obviously tried the ultimate shaft wood. Swiss Steamed Pear.

[Big Splash!]

I've no idea which of my cues are air dried but I would expect a couple of old ones I have were. The one is as whippy as hell but you can see that as it's a really slim taper the other is a Riley Tombstone probably 60 years old.
Okay on some molecular level there may be a difference but it's so minute your the only one who can tell a difference, The rest of us have more important things to consider when playing.

As for steaming making for a brittle wood you've never obviously tried the ultimate shaft wood. Swiss Steamed Pear.

So despite stating 'Wrong again pal I own a few.' you've now admitted that you don't know which of your cues is air-dried. You've simply assumed that two old cues are air-dried with no proof from the maker that they are; a guess in the dark, so it's probably you who are wrong pal. I've used an old Riley Trapezoid plate and it was slim tapered and whippy but that was the taper; it was KD as far as I could tell from feel. To be honest mate, I doubt you've got any AD cues and that's probably why you can't tell the difference.