The Birth of a Cue
There is in this world a commodity which was once common enough but is now quite rare and becoming even more rare. One place where it may be found is in Leicestershire by travelling to the east of Ashby de la Zouch on the B5003 to a little place called Moira. If you go east through Moira to where the road bends to join the A444 you will see a sign which says, "Moira Furnace Museum," and it is there that you will find that rare thing. Its name is Craftsmanship. There is at Moira Furnace a small complex of workshops and at No.6 are to be found Clive Glover and his son Tony - cue makers extraordinaire. Neither of them have had any of the conventional training in woodwork. Clive was a pharmacist, district manager of a chain of Co-op Chemist's, whilst son Tony, though studying at the local, "Tech," has no formal qualifications but, and what a but, he has skill in his hands little short of genius. They produce works of art called billiard (and snooker) cues
It all started a few years ago when snooker fanatic Clive introduced Tony to the game who then quickly became a fanatic in his own right. Clive does not now play, his deteriorating eyesight making it too difficult for him to sight the ball. Tony plays quite regularly and describes himself as a, "Fifty to sixty break man on a good night." Unable to find a decent cue, Clive decided he would make one - just like that. Well, perhaps not quite just like that. Father - and later son -were both keen hobby engineers and were used to working with lathes and tools. Clive bought some pieces of ash and made a cue. Not being over satisfied he made one or two more, local players became interested and he found he could sell many more than he could make. And so the pair took the plunge of going into cue-making on a full-time basis. It took about six months to get into production and now many serious players consider Glover cues to be the finest totally hand built cues available.
The wood is imported as five feet long, one-and-a- half inch section blocks or, "Planks." These are usually of Ash but may be of Maple. If, in the course of manufacture, any imperfections come to light, perhaps a knot or a bad piece of grain then that wood is scrapped, there are no, "Seconds." The wood is hand planed in a jig designed and manufactured by Clive Glover the dimensions and working of which is their industrial secret. Put into crude terms the wood is held and turned in the jig while Tony planes it. This process forms part of the excellence of the Glover cue inasmuch as in the normal method of manufacture the wood is held in a lathe and worked with a tool which cuts diagonally across the grain. The Glover method ensures that the wood is worked down the grain thus ensuring a beautifully straight-grained cue. Most cues nowadays are termed, "Three-quarters," as they are, "Split," just above the butt to allow for a screw extension. Most Glover cues therefore come in three sections - barrel, butt and extension, though they do make the conventional two-piece such as I had myself. One-piece cues are not in much demand these days. The hand planing process also means that a cue can be made to any required profile and an old cue can be copied to an accuracy of just thousands of an inch. And not just old cues, Glovers can make a pair of cues alike as the proverbial peas in a pod, useful for the serious player who, for example, losing a tip in the course of a big match, simply continues with the identical twin. It is astonishing to see how Tony Glover's so sensitive hands can gently take away slivers of the wood to produce the perfect section of a cue.
All the butts are hand spliced though Clive is toying with the possibility of adapting one of his machines for machine splicing. Many different kinds of wood are used for building the pattern of the splice. Some of the more exotic include various Rosewoods, African Kingwood, Blackwood, Holly Snakewood, Birdseye pine, etc. A traditional black butt would be made from the finest Sri-Lankan ebony. Custom built cues can have any combination of woods and veneers, either natural or coloured. Selections of the wood are glued and clamped as a, "Sandwich." Wedge shaped pieces are then cut from the sandwich and glued to the flattened sides of the butt end of the cue. At the very end of the butt is a short flat part on which is fastened the name plate. These name plates are made from artificial ivory which comes from Italy. Clive has patented an ingenious method of engraving the ivory involving the use of a photographic positive to make a brass negative which is used to transfer the logo to the ivory plate. Cues can thus be personalized, a player can have his name on the plate if he so wishes.
The, "Female," sleeves and the "Male," threads for screwing the sections together, are turned on a lathe and when fitted and screwed tight cause the grain of the wood to be in as near perfect alignment as it is possible to get. Even on close inspection the joins are difficult to see.
The cues are finished with linseed oil which, it is claimed, give them a much better playing 'feel' than cues which are coated in thick lacquers or varnish. Clive once said to me, "No wet cloths with our cues." And I have proved, to my own satisfaction at least, that it is so, they do not get sticky even in the warmest playing conditions - in this country at any rate. It is interesting to note that constant rubbing with a damp cloth simply rubs the coating off most makes of new cue. A Glover cue with a solid ebony butt comes out at about seventeen ounces though a cue's weight and balance can be adjusted to any requirement by the addition of a lead plug firmly inserted into the end of the butt. From the raw material to the finished article takes about fourteen hours work.
The last job is that of putting on a tip. Tips are the only things which are bought in. Everything else is produced in the workshop from the basic materials. Even the glues and oils are adapted to the Glover's exacting specifications. Glover cues do not come cheap though some are less expensive than others. Cheap/Expensive are relative terms. The owner of a Glover cue has a piece of sporting equipment which will last a lifetime and which can surely have no superior. Glovers are getting more widely known. The waiting time is bound to increase. Anyone who fancies getting a new cue should go for it - and go for it now.