The K-Rest was developed by Steve Granger who noticed a trend emerging among professional players of extending their cues and leaving a long overhang beyond the bridge-hand, thus avoiding the need to use the rest. This meant the players could continue to use their regular stance and cueing action.  As a player who admits he is never going to be rated better than “average”, he was aware that the cue action of most players is not strong enough to play in this way without compromising accuracy. The problem is that the long overhang amplifies any error at the butt of the cue.

Steve describes the K-Rest’s development.

 
                           
                            Some early heads



The K-Rest Story (so far) by Steve Granger

CONCEPT

During the 1990s cue extensions became standard kit for most professional snooker players and a new type of shot appeared. Many players, desperate not to use the rest, would add a small butt extension to their cues and play with extra overhang past the bridge hand. They could play in the normal stance and use the normal cue action, both preferable when possible. All good, if you’re a pro player with a perfect action. The problem is that most players don’t have the perfect action and I certainly fall into this category.

I was surprised to see how accurate some pros could be as I knew that even a minimal amount of extra overhang could seriously compromise the shot. It occurred to me that if a player could extend his bridging hand this overhang problem could be solved. My first idea was to shorten a standard X-head rest to about two feet and using that. At this point I had no intention of designing anything, just finding a way of playing better. After a few minutes experimenting with the half butt and a standard rest I could see there was real potential. There was a big problem however. The only way to hit low on the cue ball was to raise the butt of the cue, not ideal when you’re leaning over with your chin on the cue.


EARLY DAYS

Putting prototypes together isn’t easy. Unless you have an engineering workshop or sickening amounts of cash, it’s likely to involve a lot of searching through hardware stores, ship chandlers, nut and bolt shops, the Screwfix catalogue, the Argos catalogue, kitchen shops, the local tip, anywhere really. Then you have to turn your plunder into a working model. I guess I’m quite lucky to be a little bit handy. I’ve worked as a joiner and general builder for many years and having left school in mid ‘80s north-east England, there was no shortage of training schemes to make up for the lack of jobs. This gave me a few engineering skills that have been useful.

The K-Rest is basically two parts. The shaft was never going to be a big problem for a prototype; it’s a stick! For sure a nice shape would be nice and at first I thought the variable length to be essential. I found a piece of kit for cleaning the barrels of a shotgun that was made up of separate pieces. This worked quite well but it was a bit bendy. It turns out that a fixed length of 900mm is good in most situations so a child’s cue worked well. In fact we still sell the head on its own to fit a small cue. The head was a different matter. I needed a material that was easy to shape and I thought a plastic chopping board might work. Chopping boards are made of polypropylene and, as it turns out, for a good reason, it’s very hard to cut. The picture shows the attack on mine. It sort of reminds me of Easter Island where the unfinished monoliths stand abandoned in the hills.



Anyway, I managed to get a few working models from chopping boards and these proved to me that the design worked. Now I needed to find someone who could really play to see what he thought. I phoned Preston Cue Club in Paignton, Devon because I consider it to be a serious club and asked if they had a coach. The owner put me in touch with Jason Whittaker and Alan Tunney. Jason had been a pro some years earlier and Alan is his playing partner. When we met I was a nervous wreck. These two were clearly a lot better at this game than me, and I was going to show them a new way of playing. They were obviously expecting some crank. I showed them how the K-Rest worked and they had a little go, but they didn’t quite get it at first. They were still holding the cue in front of their faces. I had hoped not to do too much demonstrating myself for fear of looking like an utter clown but it was becoming a necessity. I put the cue ball just past the blue spot, got down and smacked in the green off its spot with plenty of screw. This woke them up. “Let’s have a go at that.”  Within a few minutes Jason agreed there was potential

Soon I discovered rigid PVC sheet that was easily shaped and I was able cut dozens using a template and router. It was one of these grey PVC samples that Steve Davis used when he demonstrated the K-Rest on TV in 2006. I had hoped to have some brass samples ready and in fact I gave Steve Davis a sample with a brass head earlier that week but I think he must have kept it and used the one I gave the TV producer. I hope he still has it.

The brass heads were troublesome at first. The photo shows a pile of expensive scrap metal that was sand-cast for us. Clearly these were never going to make it on to the CueZone table in Sheffield. I’d heard of lost-wax casting before but I thought it was an ancient art from Egyptian times. Another foundry put me in touch with a lost-wax caster who generally makes replica handles for the antique trade. The lost wax method requires a wax copy to be made then covered in plaster and melted out to leave a void. The void is filled with metal and the plaster broken away to reveal a brass copy. I really wanted some brass samples to take to Sheffield but the timing wasn’t good. The wax copies are made in a silicone mould and the man who makes the moulds was on holiday. Not to be beaten I had a go myself.



FOR SALE

The quality of those early samples had shown the potential of the lost-wax method. When the next batch of samples arrived, the ones made from good wax copies, I was in for a shock. Until this point I had never expected to go beyond the prototype stage without a huge investment of capital, but suddenly there was the potential to produce K-Rests for general sale. The heads that had come back from the caster were so good that they were certainly saleable. They weren’t cheap but they didn’t need expensive tooling. They did need a decent shaft however; a stick was not good enough anymore. Without giving away too many secrets, the shafts are made with bits from the spare parts bins of several things. The various parts have to be disassembled, cut, machined, powder coated and reassembled before having the head attached and being packaged. All of this for  £40 means that the K-Rest is a long way from turning a profit but it gives us a chance to build up a market before investing the tens of thousands needed for full production. And people are buying it so hopefully we’ll reach that critical point soon.



Regards Steve

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