OK, This is a semi-final phase to a project that has dragged on for over a year. I use to shoot pool a little bit and bought a used Meucci black dot cue from a good lawer friend of mine. I made sure that it included the case, but to be honest the case was not in very good shape. It did last for about a year before I had to tape the ends back on and such. So I needed a woodworking project at that time and ended up making a nice case for the cue.
Like most projects, the first try was pretty good, but I found out a few modifications that could make it better. So I made a second one as well, and mad them so that they could be put together and carried as a pair (shooter cue/breaker cue), or just carry one or the other. Each one has a storage cache that you can put your chalk/scraper ect.. in as well. I made them both from the lightest/cheapest wood that lowes had (aspen) and just used regular wood glue for most of the assembly. To put the top on, I used a couple small hinges that I got from hobby lobby, but I couldn’t settle on a latch. All the ones I saw around were either too big or too ugly. I wanted something low profile, so I just curled the ends of some copper wiring and then ran some dark ribbon through the end. I threaded the ribbon under both sides of the lid in case the lid was closed with the pins inside, to make it easier to open back up. The pins just slide in some holes in the side of the case and fit in some holes in the lid.
After I got everything glued up and working OK I sanded it down a little and added some foam cushion wrapped in some black fabric, to hold everything in place when porting it around. Good to go. Took it out more than a few times and it worked well. Got some good complements on it and it is definitely unique. So I ran around with it like that for about a year or more and when I was getting beat by my good friend, a friend of his came by and said it looked good but needed some stain or polyurethane to protect it. I had been meaning to do it for a while, but I had just recently finished another wood project using some red mahogany stain and polyurethane, so now I had no excuse. I went home and did a little more sanding, then stained it, then finished it off with about 3 coats of clear gloss polyurethane. The only issues I had was that the stain did not like to stay on parts of the wood that had the wood glue. I managed to get it looking decent, but you know live and learn. I think I’d like to try another set with some wood with nicer grains like curly maple or tiger wood, or whatever.
So, you can see the before and after in some of the pics. It started off as a nice cue with a crappy case and now is a really nice case for a nice cue. I still have to stain/coat the matching breaker cue case and then do some leather working to strap them together. Hope you enjoy and if you want one, just lemme know!