Hometown Rankin - February & March 2016

He uses only the finest materials to build
his pool cues including gold, sterling silver,
ivory, malachite, turquoise, opal, jade, pearl,
pau shell, snake skin, lizard skin, elephant
ear, and exotic woods such as bubinga,
macassar ebony, and redwood burl. Russ
has been featured in many publications
such as the Billiard Encyclopedia, The Blue
Book of Pool Cues, Billiard Digest, Pool &
Billiard, and various catalogues and calendars.
Russ began handcrafting pool cues as a
hobby in 1984. “I was in Texas playing pool.
I ran into a guy who was a pool hustler,
actually. We went to a cue shop in Houston.
He said, ‘These cues are really expensive.
Why don’t you make them, and I’ll sell
them,’” recalled Russ.
“When I came back to Mississippi, I told
Carolyn about it, and she thought I was
crazy. I went around to some wood working
places, and they didn’t have a clue how to
make cues. So I got a lathe–in fact it’s that
one right over there. It really wasn’t the
machine I needed though, but we still use
it for sanding. That was in late ’84. In 1991,
my wife and I decided to go full-time. We
took some pool cues to New Orleans and
showed them to a guy. He looked at them
and said they were pretty nice, but he
never ordered anything. We came back
home, and as soon as we walked in the
door, the phone was ringing. The guy
from New Orleans said he wanted to by
all the ones I had. We took the cues to
him, and when we got there, some other people
around New Orleans had already heard about
us. They came down there, too. So I’ve got him
and three or four other dealers there that carry
them. That’s where we started.”
Today, Russ has a two-year-long waiting list
of people who want his cues. “It doesn’t take
long to get the cue made, but you have to get
in line to get it made,” said Russ. “First you
make the wood round and drill a hole in it. It
takes a year to make one shaft. That’s not
working on it every day. We let it sit and then
turn it down some more. We have to let the
wood sit for a while before we turn it again or
it won’t stay straight. The wood’s fibers may try
to twist slightly. It has to be dry, and we turn it
down so many thousandths at a time so it stays
straight. That’s important. It’s a long process
that takes about five cuts over twelve months.
We have to stabilize the wood sometimes.
We’ll inject it with a dye sometimes. It’s for
hardening and appearance. We definitely
developed the process.”
“We have dealers all around the world,”
said Russ. “We don’t sell much in Mississippi,
but in Louisiana, it’s huge. The West Coast,
East Coast, Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, Japan,
China—everybody knows the name. Dealers
will order six or eight cues, and we’ll make up
whatever we want and send it to them. Then
they’ll re-sell it in Russia or Switzerland or
wherever they’re calling from.”
Russ and Carolyn travel the world for
pool tournaments and shows. “We only go
to big professional tournaments or national
68 • February/March 2016