I did not know my Canadian wood shop buddy was making wands but it doesn't surprise me to see MORE quality coming out of his shop!

Good stuff as expected Eric,

MMc

Yup Micky, I only play at it, Eric does REAL magic!

I just ordered Mendoza combo set in mirrored copper tonight...QUITE excited!

You will like them. BTW, some of the cups Donnie is making are slightly different from the way they were made before. For example, the PF minis have a different lip. It is a great improvement, IMHO.

Thanks Bill!
For the most part all the cups are identical to how they were produced in the past - it' hard to improve on the perfection that Jake acheived.
The PF Mini Cups are an exception and the mouth beads just came out fuller & rounder from using a thicker gauge of copper or brass.

The finish of the interiors of all the cups are different though - I just won't do a polished ID (inner diameter). The interior should be a flat matte finish so it is not reflective. It prevents the risk of a spectator getting a flash of a brightly colored ball off the ID of the cup. (I've had it happen where you can see yellow or red reflected in a mouth up cup when it secretly holds a ball).

And Andrew your order is shipping in about an 30 minutes.

Donnie

RNT2 is in a goodplace with Donnieat the helm... As for the Mendoza copper cups, I love mine. They're my favourite combo set to date, but with the Foxy 3's on the cards... well...

Without unbagging any felines, I can say this about Donnie:

He really did a lot of background and research work before he released a single cup. He has done some innovative things. He doesn't say he has something in stock before it's ready to ship and he has been really good about staying on top of his orders.

You can't beat that.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Josh Riehl a couple of years ago. I was on my way to visit my folks in Tacoma and stopped at Yakima and had lunch with Josh. He's a great guy, and his monkey fist balls are just fantastic. Plus, he knew where the really good hamburger joint was!

Do you do something special to get the interior with flat matte finish ?

Yes I do Olivier, I sent you a PM

The Mendoza combo set arrived in the mail with lightning speed (and from the other side of the country I might add) and I'm thrilled. I kept hearing people talk about how they could tell the difference handling a good quality cup, and it didn't really make sense to me until I handled these. They're fantastic and I'm extremely pleased with the quality, the packing and shipping...it's so nice to open up a magic product and not have to worry about broken pieces, faulty gaffs or misspelled directions. I purchased with confidence and wasn't at all let down. The ball for the chop cup was easily adjustable and took about 4 seconds to get to where I needed it.

All in all, these are beauties. I can't decide if I want to keep them looking shiny or let them get that worn down look. Any suggestions on how to keep that shine?

Polish them with Flitz. Then add a coat of Renaissance Wax. You will need to touch them up from time to time. The alternative is to polish them to a very high shine with Flitz or some other polish. If they are already mirror finished, don't polish them.

Then degrease them by washing them with dishwashing detergent. When the cups are squeaky clean, that means that all of the grease is gone.

Now let them patinize. The patina will have a polished surface just like the copper. With proper use, they will become a very dark brown.

Bill kindly switched me onto Renaissance Wax and it's fantastic! I have used it on most all of my cups. Bruce told me to try it on a patined cup once it was at the stage I liked and it looked even better ad sealed in the patina!

Here's a tip I picked up from a car detailer and it seems to work. When using Renaissance Wax on my patined cups I coated them, let it dry and instead of buffing it off I coated it again in tiny circles right over the existing wax and let that dry again. When I buffed them the shine was much deeper but they still have that dark coffee patina.

Maybe it's my imagination but I do know that it works on cars because that's what I do when I wax my car. Hey, maybe I'll Renaissance Wax my car!

Bri

All my cups that are mirror polished achieve that finish on high speed buffing wheels and polishing compounds. It's a multi-stage process.
Then prior to shipping the cups I will remove any tarnish from the interior and hand polish the exterior with Flitz.
So when you recieve your cups they are already polished with Flitz and will be as glossy as they get.
If you want to let the cups patinize to a nice even patina, follow Bill's instructions on degreasing them, this will also remove the light protective coating that Flitz leaves behind. IMO, starting your patina with a bare mirror finish will give you the best patina, far better than a patinized satin finish cup.
But I have to admit, I'm not an expert on the patina process. My Magpie Syndrome forces me to polish those dark coffee patinas. There is nothing like the color of gleaming polished copper to catch the eye!

Thanks for all the advice! You can ignore my last PM Donnie - I checked my messages before coming back to the thread, so my questions have been answered. Much appreciated!