Tips holding their shape

Bavafongoul said:
I can’t imagine that the amount of pressure applied to chalking your cue’s tip, regardless of whether you power cored
the chalk drilling a hole in it, could ever approach the amount of pressure needed that “could” ever flatten a leather tip.

This sounds absurd and even when you hear players squeak the chalk, it isn’t going to flatten their cue’s tip doing it.

Over chalking creates a mess & could lead to uneven cue tip contact with the cue ball because of caking but flatten the
tip, that sounds like some fairy tale some old timer told a newbie years back the first time they ever visited a pool parlor.
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It might not flatten the tip but it definitely wears it out like more than twice as fast.

For a while I reverted to bad chalking habits and started boring the chalk again. I went from needing a tip replacement every 4-5 weeks to every 2 weeks with the same amount of play! Once I realized this was the culprit I went back to stroking the chalk on and bam the tips last 5 weeks again.
 
pw98 said:
It might not flatten the tip but it definitely wears it out like more than twice as fast.

For a while I reverted to bad chalking habits and started boring the chalk again. I went from needing a tip replacement every 4-5 weeks to every 2 weeks with the same amount of play! Once I realized this was the culprit I went back to stroking the chalk on and bam the tips last 5 weeks again.
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You replace a tip every 2 weeks due to poor chalking ? Are you sure your chalk isn't made from gravel ?
 
Bavafongoul said:
So basically if you chalk correctly, as Dr. Dave has so aptly explained, there is no effect on your tip’s contour.
I’ve been chalking properly for the past 60 years. I can state unequivocally that my tip’s shape was unaffected.
IMO, I’d even go further that that. I don’t think chalking, versus stroking the cue ball, changes your cue tip at all.
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I feel that stroke/cuing changes the tip much more than chalking. I start all my tips at about a quarter or nickel radius and they turn to dime radius after a month or so of frequent play. I break with my player and also play on the edges of the tip more so than the center. The only maintenance I do is to lightly roll the tips on a gator grip tool if they aren't holding chalk as well as they should. I'm always careful to not remove material and use the tool lightly.

I use zan grip hard and they don't mushroom but every couple weeks I do burnish the sides with leather, just to keep them nice looking.
 
I prefer soft tips and have tried many. Ki-Techs Soft or Medium-Soft is what you might want to try out. I am going to try the Elkmaster hack that was posted by AZBer straightline in this thread. Thanks to him for sharing it.
 
I apologize for my candid reaction to your post but changing tips every two weeks
suggests you have way too much spare time. I never heard of any pro doing that
and I know a few. One is my very close friend too and he doesn’t change tips until
it’s necessary and he plays a lot of pool too. It just sounds like you are shaping the
tip to the stage where there’s not much remaining leather. After I shape my cue tips,
I don’t reshape them again. All I do is scruff the surface lightly. And the tips last for
a very long time. It sounds like you are shaping the tips too aggressively & too often.
Obviously, I can’t say why you do it that quickly but it really seems totally avoidable.
 
couldnthinkof01 said:
If you are changing the tip on a monthly basis, you must be shaping and scuffing that thing
like crazy. Any single layer med or hard tip should
need to be reshaped once after about a month, then left alone for a year or so.
Play and leave that thing alone, YOU'RE GOING
TO GO BLIND.
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I never scuff or shape.
 
Bavafongoul said:
I apologize for my candid reaction to your post but changing tips every two weeks
suggests you have way too much spare time. I never heard of any pro doing that
and I know a few. One is my very close friend too and he doesn’t change tips until
it’s necessary and he plays a lot of pool too. It just sounds like you are shaping the
tip to the stage where there’s not much remaining leather. After I shape my cue tips,
I don’t reshape them again. All I do is scruff the surface lightly. And the tips last for
a very long time. It sounds like you are shaping the tips too aggressively & too often.
Obviously, I can’t say why you do it that quickly but it really seems totally avoidable.
Click to expand...
It might be that my installer is removing too much tip. There are about 4.5 layers remaining when I get a new kamui and i replace them when they get to 2 layers are start miscuing. I chalk before every shot and the way you chalk does make a big difference in tip life. Grinding vs lightly brushing.
 
Even on a extended basis of a month and a half to as much as a calendar seasonal
replacement of 4x a year, it just seems bit excessive IMO. My tips last a very long
time and I mean literally years. And I am pretty fanatical about my cues’ shafts too.

The life expectancy of a tip correlates to how often and aggressively you attempt
to maintain the intended shape you desire. I think that also relates to what you use.
Think of it like a mustache. Some people start with one that needs trimming badly.

So they have a final look in mind and they cut a little here and trim a little there but
of course, it’s not quite the look they had in mind, at least not yet. So they trim a
little bit more here and there and pretty soon the handlebar shape is gone and it’s
starting to look more like Charlie Chapman. People do the same thing with cue tips
in that they think they need to get the tip into playing shape since it isn’t that way
when it is installed. And if you overdo it or use the wrong tools, you can & often do
shorten the tip’s life span. So the initial shaping after installation is of high importance.
 
People with more money than brains, kill tip with OVERUSE OF TIP TOOLS.

If a little roughing up is good, can hurt to attack a perfectly good tip, with AGRESSIVE YSE OF DONE SUPER DUPPER TIP TOOL.🤬
 
Threat said:
Would like opinions re. which brand of tip, in medium or soft, will hold it's shape (dime shape) the longest without having to be re-shaped.....thanks.
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Zan medium holds it shape well, no mushrooming. Certainly not the case for Zan soft, which must be de-mushroomed numerous times.
 
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