Butt, 9.5″ Extension & Joint Protector: $1,475

11.8mm Carbon Fiber Shaft with like ring: $450

Like Wood Shaft Joint Protector: $75 (gifted)

Total $1,925

Images show butt & extension after 1 turn and coated with CA (finish) to demonstrate what the final colors will be.

Most all of my butts contain spalted and stabilized wood.  I harvest rotting wood from around where I live in western PA, dry it to zero percent humidity, and stabilize with Cactus Juice resin. The resulting material is significantly more dense than the original wood was — that’s why I can use a soft wood like walnut or cherry (on other sticks; this one’s all maple on a shagbark hickory core) and have it produce a hit like purple heart or some other dense wood.

Here’s what I love about this butt: The squiggles, the wood that wasn’t spalted, didn’t accept the resin, and retained its normal sandy brown color, and most of all, the spalted burlish/highly figured maple.

The squiggles sometimes mark the progress of the fungus that ate the wood. Sometimes the squiggles are one color on one side and another on the other, and since both sides are spalted, the only thing I can surmise is that different fungi consume trees differently, and something about the size or shape of the gaps they leave (where they eat wood, they leave air and fungus poop I guess) causes the wood to absorb different amounts of pigment in the resin.

Note, it’s only the color that changes, not the hardness of the stabilized wood, so it must be the size of the molecules in the pigment that prevent some of it from getting through. The resin is or the wood wouldn’t be hard. (Unstabilized spalted wood is so weak you can often break it in your hands. Stabilized spalted wood can be beat with a sledge hammer. I’ve done it on a couple YouTube videos to prove how it holds up.)

Other times there’s just lines everywhere and the color is consistent. Must have been a single fungus with a monster appetite.

Then there’s the wood that is not spalted and retains its wood look. Those areas tend to give significant depth and sometimes a 3D pop. Always fascinating.

Last, the burly stuff. The maple I used was so degraded on the outside I couldn’t tell if I was cutting a where a limb had met the tree or if it was a burl.  Maple is capable of a lot of different patterns when it forms burl, among those patterns are the grain-any-whichway you see in much of the blue/turquoise.

Be sure to click on the magnifying glass on the top corner of the main pic. Makes it easy to go through all the images, sized to your screen. Also be sure to check out the close ups. This is some of the busiest and most beautiful spalted/stabilized maple you’ll see anywhere.

Monthly payments. No interest. 

Woods Used: Spalted & Stabilized Hormtown Maple

Butt Length: 30″

Core: Shagbark Hickory (firm hit)

Collars: Phenolic

Probable full cue natural weight: 18-19 oz.

Pin: 3/8-10 mod; radial, or QR

Glue Date: 5/25/25

Earliest Finish Date: 12/25

CAFETERIA STYLE: email me at Clayton@charactercues.com if you’d like to purchase this butt with any of the following. I’ll protect the page for you and change the listing and price to include the items you’d like to purchase. To discuss on the phone, email first. 🙂

Carbon Fiber Shaft $450 

Purple Heart Shaft: $400

Wood shaft: (any species, w/ matching ring) $350

• Maple
• Beech
• Ash
• Sassafras
• Walnut
• White Oak
• Hickory
• Honey Locust
• Beech
• Cherry

Matching wood joint protectors: $75 each