Pool Parts & Maintenance

A cue stick (or simply cue, or more specifically pool cue, snooker cue, or billiards cue), is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the cue ball. more...

Cues are tapered sticks, typically about 1.5 m (58 in) and 510–600 g (18–21 oz). Most cues are made of wood, but occasionally the wood is covered or bonded with other materials including carbon fiber, fiberglass and/or aluminum.

Construction aspects

Cues average around 57 inches in length and are of three major types. One type is a one piece cue; these are generally stocked in pool halls for use by the casual player. They have a uniform taper, meaning they decrease in diameter evenly from the end or butt to the tip. The other type is the two piece cue, divided in the middle for ease of transport, usually in a cue case. The third is another two piece cue but the joint is located three-quarters down the cue (usually 12 or 16 inches away from the butt). There are also cues that have more, notably three to five. They are usually for intermediate cues that can be used for breaking, jumping, changing of weights on the butt, as well as extensions on the butt end for longer reaches. As well, some cues have screw-in tips that can be interchanged (larger, smaller, denser, softer, etc...) in order to change the impact and path of the cue ball.

A high-quality but plain two piece cue, that looks like one-piece, run-of-the-mill house or bar cue, is called a sneaky pete. Such cues have a joint that is wood-on-wood, and barely visible. The subterfuge often enables a hustler to fool unsuspecting gamblers into thinking that he or she is an unskilled player with no regard for equipment quality or finesse, until too late. It is common for a competitive league player to also use a comparatively inexpensive sneaky pete as a break cue, to avoid excessive wear-and-tear on the tip of his or her main shooting cue.

Read more at Wikipedia.org