How it’s made

•How It’s Made - Episode 2• by Kim Walker

In this section we are going to mount the round pieces of Curly Maple on dowels. The forearm section will be mounted on the permanent ¾ in dowel that will be the backbone of the cue. This will insure that the butt never warps and will give the cue a consistent “hit” like all the cues I build. The butt sleeve will be temporally mounted on a sacrificial dowel so we can turn it on the lathe. The forearm is glued on the 30 in long dowel using gorilla glue. It foams and expands about 4 times and fills any small voids. This does not mean that there is foam inside the cue. It only foams where it escapes the glue joint. The butt sleeve is glued on the short dowel with 3 dots of super glue (CA) on each end

After 24 hours, we can begin to work on the Curly Maple pieces. We will mount each one in the lathe and taper them using the butt taper bar. Each one will be turned to about 100 thousands over size. Now that we have the forearm and butt sleeve tapered, we can cut the “V” grooves for the points. The grooves are cut using a large 90 degree “V” cutter. A special taper bar, that I designed and built, will be used to cut the proper shape and depth of the grooves.

(Figure 1)

(Figure 2) (Figure 3)

(Figure 4)

Now that the point grooves are cut, we need to make something to fill them. The 1 in squares of Gaboon Ebony need to be squared up and sanded until they are smooth and the edges are sharp. To do this, we will run them through a drum sander, sometimes referred to as a thickness sander.

When the Ebony point stock is ready, it’s time to cut it to length. The forearm points are about 9 inches long so we will cut one of the ebony point stock pieces to 10 in long. The ebony square for the butt points will be cut to about 5 inches long as the points in the butt sleeve are 4 ½ in long. Starting at the Ebony, the point veneers will be yellow, orange, red, and black. The black veneer will outline the point in the Curly Maple forearm. The yellow veneer is cut into strips that are the proper length and about 1/8 in wider than the point stock.

The veneer strips are glued on the point stock 2 sides at a time. Titebond wood glue is used because it is very strong and does not leave a glue line. The veneer strips and point stock is clamped between two oak strips until the glue When the glue has set, the edges are trimmed flush using a router and flush trimming laminate bit.

After sanding the veneer edges smooth, the other 2 pieces of yellow veneer is glued on and clamped. When the glue is dry, the edges will be trimmed with the router and sanded smooth. The next color is orange.)

(Figure 6)

(Figure 7) (Figure 8)

(Figure 9)

(Figure 10)

(Figure 11) The orange veneer is followed with the red veneer.

The final layer is the back veneer.

From each point block, we will cut 4 points. The points are held in 90 degree “V” blocks and cut free hand with the band saw. I always count my fingers when I am done. (Figure 13) In the next section, we will glue in the points and turn them even with the surface of the forearm and the butt sleeve.

(Figure 12)

(Figure 13) (Figure 14)

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