Wisconsin a 'melting pot' of pool cue makers like McDermott Cue
CBS 58 Morning News anchor Mike Curkov got a behind the scenes look at McDermott Handcrafted Cues in Menomonee Falls as the company closes in on its 50th anniversary.
A pool cue looks like a stick. A simple sporting good. But it's a lot more than that.
"It's a common misconception," said customer service manager Jayme Cernicka. "We have over 150 separate operations that go into actually building the pool cue from start to finish."
McDermott has been making two piece cues in Menomonee Falls since 1975.
"It starts with the raw material. We buy premium wood from wood vendors." Cernicka said.
They use lathes to turn the wood into two parts. If there's a design on the cue, like McDermott's popular gecko, those are cut and hand-fit like a puzzle piece.
Floor workers gave us a behind the scenes look at how it's made. Explain in our story above and also in great detail in a mesmerizing YouTube video produced by the company.
McDermott's founder, Jim McDermott, started repairing pool cues in the 60s. Then moved into making them in the 70s. When the Paul Newman-Tom Cruise movie 'The Color of Money came out in 1986, things broke McDermott's way.
"Everybody wanted to shoot pool." said Cernicka, who started working at McDermott about 25 years ago, "We ramped up production and that's really what got us on the map as one of the leading cue manufacturers in the industry."
Wisconsin as a whole rode that 80s billiard boom with companies like McDermott (Menomonee Falls), Viking (Middleton), Schon (Milwaukee), J. Pechauer (Green Bay), and Jacoby (Nekoosa) owning a large share of the industry.
"I call it the melting pot of cue builders," Cernicka said. "I think they all learn from each other. And kind of created this very popular billiard culture in Wisconsin."