One piece snooker cues and why some players prefer them.

Snooker cues are now made in many different formats, 1 piece, 2 piece and 3 piece butt-jointed styles, as well as Telescopic snooker cues with built in cue extensions.

Until the 1970’s nearly all cues were made as one piece snooker cues. The main difference was that some had ash shafts and some had maple shafts. Of-course the designs in the butt would vary in the hardwoods used and in the production process. The main difference in the production process was that some one piece snooker cues were machine spliced and other one piece snooker cues Hand-spliced. These are quite different manufacturing processes and because of the more time consuming method of hand-splicing, hand-spliced snooker are generally more expensive cues. This is not always the case now though, particularly with the huge number of cues presently being made in China. We have posted a separate article that goes into more detail on the differences between Machine spliced cues and Hand spliced cues as it is worth a written article of its own. To see it click here.

In the early days of cue manufacture of one piece snooker cues, they did not even have a ferrule, in fact the cue was used at the other end which is where the chamfer of the butt originated from.

During the 70’s and 80’s the production of one piece snooker cues underwent somewhat of a revolution.  Snooker was in it’s `heyday` and many snooker players were travelling to the many snooker halls that were opening so the introduction of joints made the cues much easier to carry between venues.

There were some problems in the early days regarding the reliability of the joints and this may still be an issue with some suppliers but truthfully there is no need for it to be so. We have sold hundreds of cues and a joint coming loose is a very rare occurrence indeed. Never-the -less some players consider one piece snooker cues offer a better feel, and that somehow the player feels the strike of the ball more if there is no joint in it. There is no scientific proof of this at all and if it were true all players would use one piece snooker cues, after all, we all want to win don’t we?  The fact is you will see the worlds top players using cues in all formats and there are many other factors in choosing a cue that will be more important to the player such as weight, length, tip size and indeed quality of the shaft and the tip. Don’t forget that the tip is the only part that actually strikes the cue ball so even the best cue craftsmanship will be wasted if the quality of the tip is poor.

Another advancement in one piece snooker cues in recent years is the ability to make the cue longer by adding Mini-butts and snooker cue extensions and this is a feature that is now common in most good quality cues. Certainly most of our one piece snooker cues have a female joint in the bottom of the cue to accept screw-on cue extensions but for those that don’t the player can always purchase a universal push-on cue extension that will fit all modern day cues and most very old ones. Players who do have an old cue that they do not want altered or jointed will still find that these push-on extensions are a far sight better then using `the old long-tackle` because they will still be able to use their own cue to make the long shots. The extensions we supply are made in the U.K by ourselves and are exactly the same as the professionals use so players with one piece snooker cues can still use the best cue extensions available.

We recognise there is still a big demand for one piece snooker cues and stock a range which are excellent value for money. Some snooker clubs prefer one piece snooker cues so we do offer an economy cue for this purpose but most are in the middle and higher quality range. Why not check out our one piece snooker cues out by CLICKING HERE and if you need any further help or advice please do not hesitate to contact us on 01271 864922 and we will do our best to help you.