I wonder where your friend got the tip:grin-square: I don't know whether Kamui planned to sell them anywhere except Russian Pyramid market. The local dealer (really a big one, no wonder Kamui works with them and only them for Russia and adjacent countries maybe) sell them in bulk, so probably I could help but I'm not sure about the price yet.
From installer's point of view, one could save time and effort gluing the fiber pad separately. But what I did not fancy much was that pad is pretty hard, much harder than leather of the tip of course, and sometimes when trimming the side the cutting tool penetrated the tip good but was pushed out by the pad. Thus there was a risk of trimming the tip diameter too much (=wasted tip). Also cutting the pad with a blade (like I do now, thanks cuejo) is somewhat tricky task too. So have to work the pad all the way around to make certain it is flush with the shaft/ferrule, so forget what I said about saving time, actually I had to spend more.
The only reason why players like this very tip and start longing for it is its unusual look. When installed, the tip looks like floating above the ferrule. I will try to make a photo so that you get the impression.
When the tips were first released our repair shop received them for trial, they were not even marked the "official" way, no holograms. etc. There were two types of them, white and ruby pads, both transparent. Though ruby doesn't give that stunning look so maybe that was the reason our local dealer asked for white/grey only. At least I have never seen any ruby since.
Other than that, these tips are just ordinary Kamuis, so one could probably try and make their own pads of such a kind, hint-hint :wink:
