A Little About Mocc1

Hello Everyone,

    I began wood working through my passion for playing pool. I started playing pool seriously when I was 18 years old. A friend of mine took me to a pool hall one night and I was hooked. I started out like most as what we like to call a banger. (You line up a shot and hit it as hard as you can praying you make the shot.) At this point my curious mind wanted to know how to get better. So I started playing more and more. I even asked others to help me learn. At this point I became what most would say obsessed. A small pool hall opened up near me so I decided to check it out. I found a semi decent cheap pool cue to buy and away I went. The time away actually seemed to help. My fundamentals were still there and my stroke wasn’t too bad. The more and more I played the better everything went. I started to control the cue ball better and running more and more racks. I eventually bought a more expensive cue (Schon) that would be the start of my next obsession. 

   One day I decided I needed a new tip on my shafts, so I took it to a local place that sells pool tables and does repairs on cues. As they handed me back my shafts with the new tips I noticed burn marks in the middle of the shafts that went all around the shafts. I immediately inquired about them and I was told “They must have had them on them when you brought them in...” WRONG thing to say to me. I immediately dumped my entire cue case on one of their new tables which included several other shafts for other cues I owned. I said “look at these… Do you see any burn marks on any of them?” They said “No”. Exactly, I exclaimed “Now these obviously came from the lathe you were using. You need to immediately take these back there and do whatever you need to do to remove them.” When they brought the shafts back out the burn marks were barely visible, however, I noticed they used sandpaper to remove the burn marks and I could feel the slight indent where the marks were. It was at this point I decided NO ONE but me would 

ever work on my cues again. 

   I went home and immediately started researching cue lathes. I decided to by a mid-sized cue lathe. I started repairing my cues as well as my friends. I eventually started to repair house cues for local pool halls as well. Since I cannot just be satisfied with simple repairs I started researching how hard it would be to actually make a pool cue. Even though that lathe was not made to build cues, just repair them. I made several cues on that lathe by hand tapering the butts and shafts. Eventually, I decided it was time to upgrade.  I decided to buy a full-size cue making lathe. This lathe had the taper bars I needed, the bigger motor and all the bells and whistles I would need to start making better cues. 

  This went on for several more years until my new lovely wife found Pinterest. She asked if I could make her some shelves from a pallet. So being the curious person I am and always looking for a challenge I said sure that shouldn’t be too difficult. I got a pallet from a company I used to work for and the new obsession had begun. We have now branched out to making pens, headboards, razors and even wood rings. I also upgraded my inlay machine to a small CNC router to help with my cue making and other wood projects. 

   We decided since the obsession was so much fun that it needed a name. Thus Mocc1 Wood Working was born. Please  keep checking for more updates and projects the wife and I come up with.

Bart Moccabe