Custom billiard cue or production cue?

Many manufacturers of custom billiard cues have models or brochures of their cues. If you buy one of their cleat styles, is it still considered a custom cleat?

This is a question that is being debated in many forums …
The word ‘custom’ is overused in the world of taco making, especially when a taco is for sale, where this word can give the taco a different status making it more ‘salable’. In some places it is used to categorize any two-piece cue …

Some of the answers are in the definition of the word custom. Custom means ‘made to order’ – if you did not participate in the construction, then it is not a custom sign. If you ‘ask’ for a sign to you specifications, you have, by definition, a “custom billiard cue”. Now, sell that taco. What happens now? The person who bought it did not do it ‘on request’. Is it still a custom sign? If not, what is it?

When people talk about “production signals”, mass production comes to mind, but how many signals does a company produce before they are considered “production signals”? The word custom … means just that. Tailor-made according to buyers’ specifications, etc. If a plug with a certain weight, balance point, axle cone, cylinder head diameter, ferrule, etc. is ordered. so that sign is custom made and therefore a custom sign. If the cue is sold to John Smith later … then it is no longer custom made. It’s just a sign.

The focus should be on the signal, not the creator. If, for example, any cue maker builds a unique cue that looks exactly like a cue previously built by another (but was individually built and did not roll off the production line), it would be considered a custom pool cue. On the other hand, if a high-profile custom cleat manufacturer decided to mass produce a standard four-pointer for purchase “out of the box”, then those particular cleats are considered production.

There are 3 types of manufacturing signs:

• 1. Production sign: more than one sign made according to the manufacturer’s specifications and is aimed at a general or specific market.
• 2. Semi-custom or custom production sign: any existing production sign (readily available) in which the “stock” or existing specifications

has / has been modified according to a specific customer’s specifications (e.g. reduction of shaft diameter, casing change, name engraving, addition of inlays or markings, etc.)

• 3. Fully custom stud: any stud made from scratch according to all specific customer specifications (choice of materials, ring design, balance point, length, weight, taper, etc.)

The LIMITED CUES can be of the 3 types of manufacture:

• 1. Limited production: limited number of signs for the public.
• 2. Limited Semi-Custom – Limited production sign that has been modified to the specifications of a specific person
• 3. Limited Full Custom: one or more identical looking signs made from scratch according to all the specifications of a particular customer

A fully custom cue will always remain a fully custom cue, as it has been created with a specific person in mind.
The manufacturing technique used to produce a sign can also influence how the sign is classified as custom or production. The cue can be made by hand or assisted by a machine. Does using CNC disqualify a cue from being a custom pool cue? This is another discussion in itself, but again, if the signal is made entirely by a machine but the design is specific and original, then the answer is clear.