Cue making

So i finally decided to give making a cue a try as its something i have fancied doing for quite some time. Now this is going to be no master piece and will no doubt make many mistakes along the way :).

So the first error in doing this was the fact that the cue blank i used was made up of two pieces of ash (1m+0.6m) which were joined together with a long dowel. This was done as i couldnt easily get a hold of a single piece of ash 60" long x 1.5" sq and since was just for practice thought will be ok especially if i make it into a 3/4 cue and split at this point.

Cue blank was then cut down to a square taper and then gradually planed to a circular blank and is now in almost complete for this stage. I did fail to take pics of my progress other than one picture below, not that there's much to see.

Cue by grmcalder, on Flickr

Wow it doesn't half take a lot of planing to do this but was rather rewarding and calming :-).

Next step is to prepare the ebony for splicing....fingers crossed and lets see how this turns out.:concern:

When it comes to finishing what do cue makers use to get the black grain in the ash?

Any tips, recommendations or highlighting of my errors are all welcome.

Cue making