There are two different ways you can go with curing pool cues: 4 foot or 6 foot lamps. At first glance, the 4 foot seem an obvious choice but there are some advantages with using the 6 foot lamps, particularly in power output. If you are a hobbyist who doesn't do any significant production, then the 4 foot lamps make the most sense since you can just break part a 4x fixture from the nearest Home Depot or Lowes ($50) and use it for parts, and just buy the lamps. This will give you 4 lamp (the minimum required for pool cues) running at 32 watts. More serious pool cue builders will probably opt to use the Workhorse 7 ballast and 4 lamps (46w each), or the Workhorse 8 and 4 to 6 lamps (34w to 44w). This lets you cure items up to 3.5 foot long. Hardcore builders will probably opt for the SG1 lamps and a SunHorse ballast, which lets you cure items just over 5 foot long, and does so much faster. No matter which way you go, the basics are the same: cover all 4 sides evenly.

Basic setup
If you are using 4 of the FR32T8 lamps (foot long, 1 inch in diameter), then you will need to build a jig to hold the lamps, with all four lamp facing the center of the jig, where the cue will be. Regardless of whether you tear apart a store bought fixture or use your own, the concept is the same. The key is having the rig so that you can drop the cue into place without having to move or touch the lights. This means you need around 4 inches space between the lamps, with the lamp ends mounted on supporting boards on both ends. This can also serve as a place to hang your cue sections, using stiff wire as a means to connect to the cue and hang from.



Thanks to M. Ghiloni for creating this image and giving me permission to share it. As you can see, he uses this design for custom fishing lures using 6 foot x 1.5" lamps, but the basic idea is the same. His lamp spacing is a little bit more than you need for pool cues, but the longer lamps are hotter, and his custom fishing lures are in differences sizes, so he had to compensate. His design also has a closed top, but you can do it with an open top and just drop the cue with with a wire rig that is connected to each end of the pool cue, suspended on the sides or end of your box. You don't HAVE to make it a box, but it does make it easier if you do. OSB (cheapest) or thin plywood is fine. A coat of paint (or UV cure agent....) is a good idea, to keep any sawdust or flakes from coming off onto your project.

When he sent this, he didn't know what type of reflector the lamp has (it is painted on the back of the lamp, 180 degrees, or exactly half the way around). You can calculate the distance from lamp to item using the Pythagoras Theorum and compensate for the thickness of the cue, or the easy way using just rough math: the distance to the pool cue will be about half the distance between lamps, so a 4 inch spacing means 2 inches from the surface of the cure, more or less. You don't want it much closer than this, or you will have 4 cold spots, where the cue doesn't get as much light between the lamps. 4 to 6 inches is fine. Any larger, and it slows down the cure time considerably.