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Schuler Cue, Inc. in Online Business Directory

Raymond Charles Schuler, Jr. was born in Evanston, Illinois on March 11, 1931. He grew up in the Rogers Park district of Chicago. At the age of 14, Ray was introduced to the game of billiards. It caught me by the throat, says Ray, and became a life-long passion. By his early 20’s, Ray was an accomplished all-round player, averaging over .70 billiards per inning in 3-cushion billiards and running up to 60 balls in straight pool. His interest in cuemaking grew out of his love for the game. Ray was a long-time customer and friend of legendary Chicago cuemaker Herman Rambow. Ray bought his first Rambow cue in 1949. Says Ray, In those days, Herman was still operating his custom shop out of the Brunswick building at 630 South Michigan Avenue. I’d saved money for a long time to be able to afford a Rambow cue, which was the only cue for a serious player to own, at least in the Midwest. The cue came with two shafts and weighed 21 ounces (that seems heavy today, but back then, 21 or 22 ounces was the standard). It cost $18.75. I still have it. When Rambow died in 1967, a need arose for quality cue repair work in and around Chicago. Ray began doing repairs — tips, ferrules, refinishing, and restoring — for friends and players in the area. Ray shifted from repair work into cuemaking in the mid-1970’s. Ray explains that transition: I was at a billiards tournament in Minneapolis and a friend of mine, a player from Louisville, asked me to do some work on his cue. While we were discussing the repair job and my interest in cues, he suggested that one day I would be making cues, and that when I did, he would like to buy the first one. Then he handed me a fifty-dollar bill as a deposit. Taking that $50 changed my life. It meant that I was committed to making a cue. I had thought about making cues — even working out an idea for a new type of joint but now I had agreed to actually make one. So I went out and bought a lathe and some other equipment, and then I got to work. Nine frustrating, challenging, exhilarating months later, I delivered my first cue. The transition from part-time to full-time cuemaking took about two years. Ray had always had an entrepreneurial streak, and once he’d made that first cue, he knew he had a new career on his hands. As for how he learned to make cues, Ray says:It was an exercise in self-teaching. I have always felt, however, that starting from scratch as I did offered at least one important advantage: it allowed me to avoid repeating certain design mistakes of the past. I came into cuemaking from an engineering background; I studied pre-engineering at John Carroll University and took a degree in engineering from the University of Detroit. I was able to draw heavily on my engineering background to accumulate a body of information and techniques that ultimately resulted in a cue stick with exceptionally-good playing characteristics.

Address: Schuler Cue, Inc., 540 Colfax Unit #2, Palatine, Il 60067.
Telephone: (847)776-7769
Fax: (847)776-6827
Website: http://www.schulercue.com/