Cue Care
Should the cue that you play with begin to feel sticky when it is running through your bridge hand, take care how you attempt to remedy this.
It is not a good idea to take sand paper to it. Simply put a little water on a soft cloth and rub the surface of the cue until clean, then take a dry soft cloth and dry the cue, immediately.
After that apply a little linseed oil, polish the cue once again with your dry soft cloth and you will be ready to play once again.
If you take care of your cue, it will take care of your game. Sandpaper simply rubs the wood away leaving you with a cue too thin and whippy to play a quality game with.
Old Cues
When you buy an old cue, you might be inclined to sand away all the imperfections that cover the surface of the cue, to clean it up and make it look nice and new. If you can restrain yourself from doing this I recommend that you do, as a good old cue should look old. Many collectors will reject a cue for their collection because it looks too new and does not fit in with the rest.
Try not to overly clean up any old cues that you come across as the surface will become susceptible to dirt and moisture.
If you have no alternative but to clean a cue, take care to restore the oil with a sealant like bees wax, French polish or linseed oil.
Laquer
Some cues have what we call lacquer on the butt, this is a way of protecting the cue. It’s like a polish. It keeps the cue from swelling and expanding and changing shape in different heats and temperatures and weather conditions.
So it helps if a cue has originally got lacquer on the butt, it will help the cue stay in its original condition.
I recommend from a collecting point of view; never remove this lacquer, keep it on the cue, it will maintain the cue for you. It will look after the cue.
I won’t tell you in this piece which ones should be and which ones should be oil finished because that would take a full piece itself, but what I will say is, if you get a cue that’s got the original lacquer on it and you’re not intending to use it as a player, even if you personally don’t like the feel of the lacquer in your hand, you feel that it’s sticky even though it isn’t it makes your hands feel sweaty to use the cue so you want to remove it, don’t remove it.
From a collecting point of view and to retain the value of the cue, I strongly recommend you don’t remove it.
David Smith
Cues n Views
