Quote:
Originally Posted by JimBo  Part 8 in our very informative series, this one should be an interesting one for a lot of reasons, first Ken is some what of a rookie cuemaker, and second I don't know much about him. Up until this one I was friends with the people who have participated, so I can't wait to learn something new and get to know all about Ken.
Kenneth Murrell was a 20+ year military man working in and running a Navy machine shop, he retired 6 years ago and he started building cues, now he's a stay at home Dad and cue builder, he started doing repairs on cues while in the Navy, he's now based in the FL pan handle. As I have already stated I don't know much about Ken so I'll kick us off with some easy questions.
1) Ken Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Can you explain your start a little better for me, Are you a pool player, if so how long have you played the game and how would you rate yourself (A,B,C,D scale). How popular is pool on Navy bases and do the players have their own cues?
2) Who helped you on actually making a cue, have you worked in any other shops, did you learn from a book or CD/tape?
3) What cuemakers from the past have influenced your work, and who's cue did you play with?
4) How would you describe your style as far as looks and design?
5) What do you feel is the most important aspect of the cue from a construction standpoint?
Jim <---Snuck 12 questions into 5, very sneaky start. |
Hi Jim.
Thank you for having me here.
I started playing pool at about age 7, my father and uncle where quite the players back in their day.
I got started doing a repair to a Meucci cue for a guy on the ship and it just sort of evolved from there. While in the Navy, I played pool in more countries than I can remember. Been drunk in most of them also. Nothing better than walking into a pool hall in the middle of a small Italian town, nobody speaks English, but all of them want to play 9 ball with you.
Never worked in anybody elses shop, never read a book or watched a CD on building cues. With a long machine background, I spent some time studying the cues that I owned, blue printed one out the way that I would build it and built it from the plan. It played alright, nothing to write home about, but it gave me a basic idea of what had to be done. From there, I have refined my process somewhat, changed the way some things are done and the cues play much better now.
Over the years, I have owned Szamboti's, Balabushka's, early Joss, Scruggs, Palmers, Kersenbrock, etc. I used to collect the early R series Schon's. I have always liked the plain and simple, 4 point with veneers, simple butt sleeve. I currently play with a 5 point with veneers, plain butt sleeve and hoppe ring, buck horn joint and ferrule. Simple, to the point and plays great.
As for a style, well I am not sure I have one. I started building what I liked but over time it became more what the customer wanted. Now I build primarily what the customer designs with some of my influence mixed in, but I have never been the best at design. If Thomas Wayne is the Savant at design, I am the idiot. Most of my best designs are scrap now. I keep it simple unless the customer wants to come up with an idea and I can usually expound on that and figure out how to build it and make it astetically pleasing. That is my strong point, figuring out how to do what they want in their design, give it some finishing touches and flow.
Everybody has an opinion of what is the most important in cue building. I figure it would be consistancy in what you are doing, using the best materials and keeping close tolerances while fitting.