Own a legendary Balabushka for only $352.00. The GB-1 model.

FLE POOL INC, is an authorized distributor of the Balabushka line and the Adam Cue company.

I will add as a bonus, my 3 DVD’s on how to play pool and trick shots, $70, a set of joint protectors, $15, a velvet pool case, $20, and a certificate of authenticity suitable for framing, $105 of free items.

This pool cue has a maple forearm with four sharp rosewood points with four veneers. The wrap is irish linen and the joint is 5/16 x 14 stainless steel. The Canadian maple shaft is a 13 mm pro taper, a Le Pro tip, MCB ferrule. To view a picture of the cue.

SRP $440.00. On sale for the lowest price you can find on the net, $352.00. We are an authorized dealer for Adam Cue and you cannot find any lower prices published than what we offer.

You are now playing with a cue with Balabushka’s signature on it. Your friends will be seriously impressed. The GB-1 is the same basic cue as the GB-9, they all play the same. As you move up the line they get more fancy and the prices increase. If you want a little fancier cue than the GB-1 then call me for a quote, 770-381-6609 or email me at:

Fast larry at bellsouth dot net fastlarry@bellsouth.net

Now add $79 to the price and you are at $431, I will juice your cue so it will now play exactly like my Bushka tour cue.

THE FLE BUSHKA JUICE CUE: THE ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE CUE?

These cues you see on the Adam site in the Balabushka line are the standard line, 13mm Lepro medium soft tip. There are 4 basic types of cues made today.

Very stiff, very thick shaft, very thick spine, an old Dufferin house cue as an example, with the Maple leaf on the butt. (2) Stiff, a Schuler cue with an American shaft. (3) Medium, McDermott. (4) Soft, Meucci. All cues are going to fall into one of those last 3 categories. Schuler knew this and he offered 8 different shafts that went from very soft to very stiff. If you order the stock Bushka it will be #3, medium firm. The thicker and the stronger the shaft, the stiffer they get. A juice cue will be a #4. THE FLE BUSHKA JUICE CUE: THE ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE CUE?

These cues you see on the Adam site in the Balabushka line are the standard line, 13mm Lepro medium soft tip. Pick out any one you want and call me for a price. 770-381-6609 or email to: fast larry at bell south dot net. fastlarry@bellsouth.net

http://www.theadamcueco.com/cataloga.cfm

There are 4 basic types of cues made today. Ignoring the Kmart junk imports which is Ramon wood.

(1) Very stiff, very thick shaft, very thick spine, an old Dufferin house cue as an example, with the Maple leaf on the butt. (2) Stiff, a Schuler cue with an American shaft. (3) Medium, McDermott. (4) Soft, Meucci. All cues are going to fall into one of those last 3 categories. Schuler knew this and he offered 8 different shafts that went from very soft to very stiff. If you order the stock Bushka it will be #3, medium firm. The thicker and the stronger the shaft, the stiffer they get. A juice cue will be a #4.

I offer you the opportunity to have any one of them juiced. I'll make it to play like and be an exact copy of my tour cue. Pros like me do not play with cues right off the shelf. Did you think Earl played with a stock cue, or Tiger Woods? It has been long rumored Earl had a red dot shaft hidden under that white paint? His shaft was 11.5 and the model they sell is not. We have the factories do things to them we know will increase their performance. It will play circles around the stock cue. You will get extra English and power. To do that I make the cue now a fast Larry custome. Your new cue, will have all the secrets I have discovered that make it outplay the world. It outplays the old PP-4 $850 Meucci I used to tour with IMHO> its performance is very similar to it.

Your juice cue, is no longer a production cue, it is a true custome cue. I change, or can change everything on the cue. We change everything on the shaft, we can change inlays, wrap and we do change the end cap. To have a custome cue maker duplicate this cue for you, he would charge you at least double to triple what you are paying me for it.

You get a Talisman H pro layered tip. It is the same durometer hardness rating as the single layered Triangle tip. This tip is very hard and it will take some time to get used to it. You must chalk up well on every shot. Play the tip in well for at least 2 hours. Put the chalk on hard and grind it in for a while and it will squeak, but later on that will calm down some. Your tip is sent out shaped in a Nickel and some prefer this. After 2 hours, I now advise you to file your tip down with a sandpaper file to a sharper slope to a dime radius. Once more play that in for at least 2 hours, and then reshape it one more time. The tip will now be stable. I highly recommend you use the H tip, but if you specify a Talisman S or M, it’s yours. If you want a Morri S or M, add $10 to the total price.

You will note when you reshape from the nickel to the dime, your draw power just kicked up and you are now putting extra English on the ball. Never use a tip pik on a layered tip as it will pull the layers apart, break the seals and glue and the tip will later delaminate fall apart. I now will use my dime Willard’s metal disc, with the carbide steel inside the middle. Now and then, I just put the disc on top of the tip and make a couple of turns which gives me an even round shape and holes the dime contour. I do this lightly not putting any real tork on the tip. You never put the disc on the ground between your feet, insert the tip and twirl the tip by spinning the butt in both hands like you are starting a fire in the woods. Yes, that works fine on a Triangle single layer solid piece of leather, but it will tear up any layered tip. Most delaminating failures on layered tips come from the players not knowing this, or ignoring these simple instructions. Actung, you must give up your tip pik. Learn how to use the sandpaper file, have your local installer or any desk man that puts on tips show you how.

My special tour ferrule is for super low deflection, which is no longer the stock MCB, but is my XTCFL. You will not believe the new accuracy you will have. When you blend a high performance ferrule with the right tip, magic happens.

The shaft is my special design, a pro tour taper, meaning, at the tip end it's now 11.5mm, instead of 13, and the shaft is a little thinner. I use an AA grade of Canadian hard rock maple, so even though the shaft is thinner, it is still very strong. It is not, whippy. You will get used to the smaller tip in just a couple of days and once you experience the joy of all this power and natural English, you will never go back to a fat tip again. If you do, it will look like a phone pole to you.

The stock cue is like driving a Lincoln Town Car, once I juice it, and then it’s a Corvette. Total performance. You can have 12.75, 12.50, 12.00, but the smaller these go, the more the performance increases. If you want the entire enchilada, do the 11.50mm. The other thing I discovered is going below 11.50, to 11.00 or lower, does not help. The performance stops at 11.50m. It would also keep making the ferrule thinner which would not be good for pool. Unless you are going to use it for Snooker which does not have a lot of 9 ball hard shots, do not consider 11, 10 or 9mm.

The concept is you have to put a full tip right on the stock cue to make it hit a certain position spot on a stiff shaft. On the juice cue, you would use only an l/4 or half tip to make the shot. Being able to use less English and to be hitting more in the center of the cue, means less deflection and squirt and less misses on long shots.

When George Balabuska made cues, they were mostly 20 or 21 oz. Today most cues are made at 19oz. We know a heavy cue follows the ball best, 21, and a light cue, draws the ball best, a 17. So a 19 is a compromise between the two. I have found, and so has Meucci, that the ultimate weight of a cue, for maximum performance is 18.75 ozs. Some now playing with a 20 tell me they could not play with an 18.75, rubbish. Losing a single l.25 oz, will be adjusted for in a single day. Most of you can’t feel or tell the difference in a once. Your new juice cue will ship to you at 18.75oz, but we will make it at any weight you ask for and specify. If you want 21, you can have 21.

Meucci tells me from their testing that the joint only contributes 4% of the performance in a cue. Therefore it is unimportant. I was using the Meucci plastic, and the Schuler stainless steel in my shows. It does not matter. So go with something stronger than plastic which can age, crack and break under impact. All bushka’s are made with the highest quality Japanese steel. They are all built in Japan in a factory with 30 years of cue making experience.

The wrap is real Irish Linen, light in color and not the fake stuff or even nylon the cheap cues use. I like it because it will absorb moisture in my hand and it allows me to make a firm hold on the cue and it does not slip. Putting a coating of plastic over a linen grip to me is stupid, it defeats the purpose of the Linen and you now have the same feel on the cue as a cheap house cue. Why this is so popular amazes me, I guess because it looks pretty. We do offer any type of leather grip you could want. I had that on my old Hoppes, Rambo’s and my original Bushka. They are wonderful, but expensive. Call for a quote, 770-381-6609.

Some of the cues out there now are butt heavy, the weight of the cue is back towards the end, which is bad. The bushka, is perfectly center balanced. You can be playing with an 18, I can hand you a bushka 20 and it will feel like an 18 to you. Why, you can’t feel the weight, when the cue is balanced perfect. The shot that was the most popular in the 50’s was the follow into the stack in 14.1, therefore heavier cues were needed. Today in 9 ball, the shot used the most is the draw; therefore a lighter cue is needed.

If you bought one of the higher end models your cue comes with beautiful inlays. On my LTD-2 which was a 100 cue run and is no more, I wanted to make it fancy for my exhibitions and shows. I installed 8 white diamonds, like you wear in a ring around the points in the forearm, a total of 17 carrots. 4 are 3 carrots, 4 are 1.25 and they alternate small, large, etc. I call it the Diamond cue. So we can install any stone you send us, or add an inlay you may choose. You might want to change out the mother of pearl for an ivory diamond shaped inlay or add them someplace else. You can design or change your cue, call for a quote.

On the end of the cue is the vibration reducing limb saver device, which acts also as a rubber bumper. It reduces the tuning fork vibrations that all shafts have and it allows the tip to stay on the cue ball longer. It is called a limbsaver, it replaces the factory bumper which does nothing for you but fill up the hole in the end of the cue.

When that is all done, this cue will outplay and outperform anything on Earth, IMHO. It smokes, its hot hot hot. The extra charge for that work and additions to the cue, are only $79. Allow an extra week or two, for the custome cue to be finished. Stock cues, are shipped the next day. If you have any old used bushka, you can send me the cue and to juice it will be $89. Send me any cue of any brand or model to be juiced and it will be $99. You can order extra Bushka shafts for $150, but our sale price on them is only $99. Some tall people want a 30 or 31” extra long shaft. That costs $175 to fit on a bushka. Always send in the butt to insure any shaft work that is done insures the two snug up tight with each other and the threads match.

I have never sent out a juiced cue yet, that the owner did not love it and who did not learn to adjust to it and make it play. Zero complaints, just happy campers. But, if for any reason you can’t make the adjustment, you just buy the stock 13mm shaft for $99 and keep the juice shaft as a backup in case a tip ever falls off. The 11.5mm is also good for playing Snooker. The quality of these cues is the best there is. They are made in Japan by Helstetter and in 15 years, I have never got one back. I have never broken one and I put a lot of power and abuse on a cue in my trick shot shows. They have the full factory warranty on them.

All the balabushka's come with just one shaft. I always recommend buying a suit with 2 pair of pants and a cue with two shafts, so if a tip comes off, you just change the shaft. The normal cost for a 2nd shaft is $150, but my price is a low $99.00.

The cue comes with the Balabushka signature on it. The original never did, but nobody today, knows that. Your friends will be so impressed to see you with the cue featured on the Color of Money movie. We bought the rights from the Balabushka family, to duplicate the cue, as George was making it. All of his secrets were not lost. I am asked, how does the copy play, compared to the original. I own an original and am one of the few who can make that comparison as I play on tour with the copy today, the LTD edition. The copy outplays the original.

Most pros like me had to stop going out in public with the original when its value went from 2K to 20K overnight. Mine now sits in a safe deposit box in a bank. I was attacked by two punks in a dark parking lot, one with a blackjack who tried to mug me and take it away. They did not know, who they messed with. I now have their blackjack and one of the guys has a nice scar on his face. But that was the wake up call, people will kill you for such a valuable item, so why carry it around when it will only get you hurt, or one day, you will have to hurt someone to defend it. So I now have the next best thing. I play with the copy and nobody will try and mug me for it.

George Balabushka was born in Russia in 1912. He arrived in the states in 1924 and his start was making children’s toys out of wood. In the late 50's and 60's he became known as the man. The premier cue maker of his time. All of the greats of that time put down their old Rambo’s and bought his cue. Minnesota Fats, Willie Mosconi, Steve Mizerak, it's the hall of fame list almost. Very few were made, few survived over the years as over a half century of daily play trashed most of them. One man shops can only put out about 100 cues a year. In 1974 George passed on and with his cue into legend. It is all about supply and demand, when there is a small supply, and a large demand from people with money, prices rise. The remaining cues were used by the top players mostly in the Northeast.

The Color of Money pool movie showed Fast Eddy Felson and Vincent playing with a balabushka, and Eddy telling the kid, it was the cue. The problem was, this was not a Bushka, but a simple Joss cue they bought figuring Vincent would drop and damage it and they did not want to take a chance with an original. Once that movie was seen worldwide, the price on the cue went through the roof as the Japanese, then flush with money and power, virtually bought up most of the ones available on the USA market.

Old timers, now struggling to eat and pay bills, had to sell their lifelong cue, as 10 to 20K, was something they could not pass up. When the Japanese took all the cues off the market, the price kept rising, as the supply was now nil, and the demand with money is still out there. Now and then you will see one go up on EBay for these prices. So unless you are a millionaire, you cannot afford to play with a Bushka. Unless it is the copy.

But you can afford to buy an exact copy of one for one in the $300 to $600 range. There is only one place that you can buy them from, Adam Cue, which has been making and selling them since the early 90’s. This is the only cue that allows the George Balabushka signature to be on it legally. So, how do your new copy play, compared to the original? Technology advances on every sport and the wood golf drivers, the wood tennis rackets of the 60’s are long gone. Advances have also been made in pool with better more modern materials George did not have back then. Our glues and epoxies are better.

We know today, all the performance is in the tip, ferrule and shaft. That is where it is all at. We pay all that money to have a fancy butt which is nice, but the end of your cue does nothing for the performance. It is for showing off only.

Let’s do a review, OC, original cue, NC, new cue. Please note, for an extra $79, I can offer a custome version of the stock cue, so it will play like my tour cue. I juice up this cue so it gives the advanced player maximum performance. It is like buying a Ford Crown Vic, bringing to it me, I juice up the engine and you drive off with a Corvette. For only $79, so how can you not afford me to juice up your new cue?

Oc, soft tip, a felt tipped backed soft Champion. I install a Talisman 10 layered pro tip H, the tour uses that type of tip and it plays circles around that old tip. This harder tip will increase your power and English by an amazing amount.

Oc, used an Ivory ferrule. That was all they had back then as Plastics and the technology in the 50’s was very crude. Ivory is rock hard, deflects the worst of any ferrule you can use. It is the worst ferrule you can put on a cue. They are temperature sensitive and can crack if exposed to changes from hot to cold. They don’t ride well in a trunk. They knew that back then which is why they used the felt backed soft tip to absorb this hard ferrule hit. We now all know a hard tip out performs a soft tip, and if you put a hard tip on Ivory, it feels like hitting a brick wall. It is stupid to even consider one, 60 years out of date. So why do all the custome cue guys try and sell you one. Because they charge $100, for an ivory ferrule they buy for $12, make an extra 88 bucks ripping you off selling you crap you buy into. They will tell you, Mosconi played with it. Yes he did, because 60 years ago, that was all he had, but if he was alive today, he would not go near one.

That is like saying in Golf, Bobby Jones played with a wood head, wood shaft driver, so you need one too, today. The people who have had the most success in performance of cues playing great have been the ones who have figured out how to make a ferrule, thin, light, but strong enough not to break, which few have mastered, which has been mostly us, Predator, Meucci. The rest of the world is using old technology, badly out of date. Having a low deflection cue, comes from several things, but it is mostly the ferrule and that means on the longer shots you must put English on, the squirt or deflection curve less, you make more shots. The stock cue has a modern low deflection ferrule. The juice cue ferrule is totally different, thinner, and deflects even less.

Our wood we use today, AA Canadian Hard Rock Maple, is the same George used. His wood back then was of course better, but all those original shafts have been worn out by sanding and all have been replaced. The wood you get today, on the OC, is the best that there is. I juice the shaft down on a lathe, taking the stock shaft, which has a tip of 13mm, and I take it down to 11.5mm. The new taper on the Juice cue is different from the stock cue, which is stiffer.

Most of the cues George made back then were 11.5 to 12mm. Each cue he made, was a custome design, to match the player he had watched play. The player could ask for any specs he wished in his cue, or let George design it for him. I have found that most cues today, including the stock NC, are 13mm. I discovered when I take that taper down from 13, to 11.5mm the cue explodes with new energy, power and English. Predator has also discovered the same thing in their new Z shaft which is also 11.5. They tell me it outplays the 12.75mm predator original by 14%. So there is your proof. I am not the only one who has figured this all out.

The nc uses the same joint as the oc, stainless steel. George like Rambo began using Brass which was fine for straight pool because there is no hard break shot. But when 9 ball came in strong in the early 60’s players were now breaking hard and the joints began to fail so George moved to Steel. Good riddance, they would darken and you have to use brass cleaner on this to keep them bright.

We used to think the joint was where all the performance was. We now know it is only 4% of the performance of the cue, so plastic or steel, it does not matter. I like stainless steel because it has less chance to break, or age which plastic does. So why do some sell a cue with a plastic joint. Because it is cheaper than steel and they are saving money at your expense by telling you to plays better.

That is where all the action is up front, on the tip and ferrule, then back to the taper. Everything you now get on my juice cue, tip ferrule and shaft, is different from the stock cue and has been changed.

The butt on the OC, NC is the same wood and construction and uses the same inlays and patterns. The early Bushka’s were quite butt heavy, and the size of the butts, the diameter around were larger than they are today, as Rambo and George were using the Hoppe Titlist butts and inlayed them, which is not good for people with small hands and short fingers like I have. These were really a billiard cue and not a pool cue. Back then, players wanted a cue that would work for both games. Billiards was more popular than pool until after WWII. Later OC models became more center balanced and the butt diameter got a little smaller. Georges cue was the first to be made for 14.1, straight pool, which did not require the force to propel the very large and heavy ivory ball used by then at 3-cushion billiards. Today’s NC, is more comfortable to play with, than the OC. The hand fits around it better.

The Oc, was 57” long. The NC, and all cues made today, is 58” long, which is better and gives you more reach to more shots.

We install on the juice cue a vibration damper, called a limb saver, which takes all the tuning fork vibration out of the hit. It keeps the tip on the cue ball longer. The oc, did not have that technology back then.

The OC never was signed and never had a signature imprint in the forearm like Rambo and Hoppe Titlist did. The nc has the full George Balabushka signature in the forearm so everyone can see and admire what you are playing with. Adam bought the right to copy the cue and use the signature from the Bushka family.

So my $350 Bushka, GB-1, or juice it to $450, plays circles around the original Bushka that today would cost you between 10 to 15K at auction. Is that, an offer, you cannot refuse, or what?

To view the entire line: http://www.theadamcueco.com/cataloga.cfm

FLE POOL INC is an authorized dealer for the entire Adam cue line.

If you have any questions you may call me at 770-381-6609 or email me at fast larry at Gmail dot com.

See our websites at www.fastlarrypool.com

www.poolchat.net is where I answer pool questions at.

FLE POOL INC is an authorized dealer for the entire Adam cue line.

If you have any questions you may call me at 770-381-6609 or email me at fastlarry@bellsouth.net

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