Butt & Joint Protector: $825

There’s another gallon and a half of this orange stabilizer left. After that I’ll never match the color again. The reason?

I had a funky idea: green on one end, purple on the other, then submerge it all in blazing orange for the full stabilization process and cook. I did that with enough wood for 2 sticks and the results are wild. I like. Now.

But when I took them out of the Cactus Juice resin I thought I’d ruined some nice wood. It looked like carnival sewage. The resin on the outside was slick and muddy, stomach-churning, gag-reflex-inducing brown.

I cooked it anyway and when I cut off the outer layer after the wood cooled, I found to my utter shock and delight, burnt orange. I love burnt orange. Years ago when I was a financial planner I painted burnt orange accent walls throughout the building.

While viewing the layouts I thought what these purple/orange/green butts needed was a handle section made out of the composite colors, the orange mud, to kind of tie all the colors together. The handles needed to have a different texture and grain pattern, however, to provide some definition and eye breaks. I knew, however, that the color wouldn’t be the same orange, now that all the other purple and green had a full opportunity to mix.

It was a gamble but what’s a fella to do?

I had just the right wood to give it a try. Stuff that looks good no matter what color it is….

When I started cue building, part of the reason I new God had my back was the immense amount of resources that dropped in my lap. My former neighbor had hauled and left several giant logs about ten feet from the edge of my lawn. He’d left them not on his land, but his father’s, who’d already given me permission to use a bunch of his rotting wood. I happened to run into my former neighbor in town filling gas cans like me and asked about the logs. (A providential meeting. I’ve seen him once in 5 years and it was right after finding the logs.) He said to take them. He’d had a project in mind for them but had moved on from that long ago. One of the logs was tiger maple, and the spalting was generous. Thank you, Hormtown Mowreys. Salt of the Earth.

The log was the trunk of a 48 inch maple with massive compression from all the many tons above. I figured that wavy pattern, with all the other delightful fungal squiggles and whatnot, would make for perfect handles for my purple/orange/green sticks. And since I was going to the trouble of an extra cook to make to 2 handles, may as well add enough for another stick…. just in case the final color was a winner.

Sedona Mud is that other stick.

The current images show the with CA all over, which is the finish I use, and is a perfect expression of what the final colors will be.

This butt has a purple heart core. Add a purple heart, osage orange, or hickory shaft if you want a break monster. Add a carbon fiber or BurcHowdy Black Birch shaft if you want low deflection and massive control. And if you want regular wood, consider any of my regular shaft species, but pay close attention to black birch. It’s stronger, stiffer, has more crushing force, and is slightly lighter than hard maple. Better English. Better control.

The question I have: Is this your Character Cue? There will never be another like it.

–Clayton

PS… Want to add the best wood shaft on the planet to your order? I’m on a quest to build the best low deflection wood shaft on planet earth. Check out my reasoning and progress here… and maybe grab one of the first 30 along with a prototype shaft for testing and feedback: https://charactercues.com/product/black-burchowdy/

Monthly payments. No interest. No automatic bank draft.

Can be set up with specific monthly payment amount or you can make periodic payments on your own schedule until finish time.

Woods Used: Spalted & Stabilized  Tiger Maple, Box Elder, copper rings

Butt Length: 30″

Core: Purple Heart

Collars: Phenolic

Probable full cue natural weight: 19-21 oz.

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

Glue Date: 8/28/25

Earliest Finish Date: 4/26

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. 🙂

Low Deflection Shafts:

• Carbon Fiber: $450
• Black BurcHowdy: $400

Break Shafts: 

• Purple Heart Shaft: $400
• Osage Orange: $400
• Hickory: $350

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

• Maple
• Black Birch (recommended)
• Ash
• Sassafras
• Walnut
• Hickory
• Honey Locust
• Beech
• Cherry

Matching wood joint protectors: $75 each

Extensions:

• 3-6″ Same Wood: $250
• 7-12″ Same Wood: $300
• 3-6″ Like-Design: $450
• 7-12″ Like-Design: $500