Joshua Treadway
The best part about making cues? “Any customer that puts their faith in me and the look on their face when you deliver a cue. They just light up!” Joshua Treadway of Treadway Custom Cues is our focal point in this month’s Meet the Cue Maker.
Joshua Treadway, 35 resides in St. Louis, Missouri with wife Sarah and 5-month-old daughter Emmalyn. When he was 15, he started playing pool at the local Cue and Cushion pool room. He quickly developed a natural curiosity about the equipment and how it all worked. He still remembers at age 18 when he saw the Saint Patrick’s Nightmare cue by Thomas Wayne and he knew he wanted to venture into the world of cue building. In 2007 he began working at the pool room and took up pool table repair and cutting his own tips. While working there, he met legendary cue maker Jim Buss and they became friends. It wasn’t long before Josh was invited to apprentice under Jim with the intent of taking over the business once Jim retired. In 2010 Josh established “Treadway Custom Cues” and it was in 2014 when Buss retired leaving Josh the business and enabling him to become a fulltime cue maker. Since then, Josh has kept his shop in the inherited 1300 sq ft commercial space about an hour away from his home in Overland, just outside St. Louis, Missouri.
Treadway cues focus on playability and how they feel and sound. Being more forward balanced, Josh says they provide a better stroke. He uses a short splice technique for the majority of his cues. This is when the builder uses a single piece of wood and creates a V shaped groove for the veneers to lay over and then be turned down. A couple of his favorite builds are either a 6-point or 4-point cue with bridged veneers. Because he has so many creative ideas, Josh finds the hardest part of cue building is not getting sidetracked. “It’s getting the idea out of my head and onto paper so I can make things happen”. While he may have many ideas for designs, he typically sticks with radial joints of 5/16-14 compression because he feels having more wood-to-wood ratio creates a more crisp hit. While he does utilize a CNC machine, he also hand sharpens the corners for more precision on the inlays. Josh makes most of the cue himself minus the pins and bumpers. He even purchases his own hides and has them skived down to the thickness he likes for his leather wraps. The cues are then finished off with his signature T. You can actually tell the timeline of when each cue was built based on the placement of his signature. When he first began, he signed his cues on the points for the first three years. The next seven he went to an engraved T on the butt of the cue. As of his 10th year and on, the T is now an inlay. This can help a customer get an idea of when their cue was built if they are not the original owner. Besides his mentor Jim Buss, Josh states his influences have included cue makers Andy Gilbert, Mike Durbin and Pete Tonkin among others. He also considers the work of Ernie Gutierrez as one of his favorites.
At only 35, Treadway states his career highlight to date was winning the Collector’s Choice Award at the 2015 International Cue Collectors Show (ICCS) in Denver. This is quite the accomplishment. Not only are you up against some of the best top tier cue makers, but not just any cue maker can enter. You have to be invited directly from the ICCS. The cue that gained him the award was made from red amboyna burl and had an ivory handle. It also included silver detailing along with silver outlined box windows. Quite the gorgeous cue, it’s no wonder this one earned an award. His goal is to continue improving and just make bigger and better. While his cues range in price, his custom orders typically start at $1000 and increase depending on design and detail. His waitlist is currently 2.5 years and if you thought you could pay a little extra to jump to the front of the line, that’s certainly not the case. Even his own playing cue waits patiently on the list out of respect to his paying customers. With a yearly production of about 50, Treadway cues are in high demand. This doesn’t even include the jump/break cues that Josh spent 2 years developing and now make up an additional 25 yearly orders. The best way to get your very own Treadway cue is to contact Josh directly or go through one of his Brokers such as Biggelbachs.com or one of his other brokers listed on his website at treadwaycues.com. However, if you’d like to catch him in person, he’ll be at the 2022 Super Billiard Expo in Philadelphia. Feel free to stop by and catch a glimpse of the newest batch from one of our favorite cue makers.
