I bought a bunch of maple shaft wood from Chris Hightower, the fella that makes a highly regarded cue lathe and sells other cue building supplies. .

The shafts are available with various amounts of turning required, before they reach final size. He has machines that allow him to create a high quality shafts efficiently, so much that I can buy them with the hard part done, turn them to size and finish them, and save boatloads of time.

I’ve begun turning them to size, and once I get a minute, I’ll update the website so any stick can be bought with a maple shaft instead of carbon fiber, saving buyers mucho dinero.

Also notice the taper shaper now has a box around it. When it’s closed, I can run the machine and breathe. That’s good.

Another update: my “finishing lathe” is now an epoxy/CA glue application lathe, inside a dust proof and fume-containing booth. Later today I have an air filter arriving that has a charcoal filter, good for removing those nasty CA glue fumes. The goal is to be able to apply finish and keep working on other stuff, rather than running outside with my gas mask on, with my lungs unconvinced they were protected, and my eyes stinging from the fumes.

CA glue is nasty, nasty stuff to breathe. The only thing left, if this doesn’t work, is to run a hose from the booth outside and pump the fumes there.

The projects took me out of commission a few days, and a flu another few.

But Character Cues is rolling again.