Tip Curvature/Break Stick/Increase Cue Ball Speed?

Island Drive

Island Drive

Otto/Dads College Roommate/Cleveland Browns
Silver Member
Because of a recent article saying 60 degrees is the correct tip curvature to grab and initiate cue ball spin, it started me thinkin' again.
Break sticks hummmmm.... Nowadays they seem to offer a good product to help increase forward cue ball speed.
Ferrule materials also, seem especially important, tho sometimes materials can be illegal.
Here's what I'm gonna try and I can't see How it would not help my break speed, I'll try it on my cheap jumper either way.
I just sanded down my break stick tip to (guessing a 80 degree angle) making the tip very pointed.
Because the curvature of the tip grabs.... how could a pointed tip, not increase forward speed when coming thru the shot?

bm
 
Island Drive said:
Because of a recent article saying 60 degrees is the correct tip curvature to grab and initiate cue ball spin
Click to expand...
If you're talking about my post (with the diagram), my only point is that you need at least 60 degrees of curvature (30 per side) to be able to match the tip's and CB's surfaces at maximum offset (so you don't miscue there).

Island Drive said:
how could a pointed tip, not increase forward speed when coming thru the shot?
Click to expand...
How would it?

pj
chgo
 
Because there's less sidewall grab?
So if the top is waay smaller Round more of a sharp egg shape, is what I'm trying and seeing if it matters at all.
Never know.
But I do know, there's less ''friction'' area occurring.... that's for sure.
 
only way to increase speed is to have something elastic that rebounds. other wise its all about weight and speed of the cue
with your ability to propel it faster.
 
I used a flat tip for a few years. I really have no measurements on speed. It was not a game changer either

Just because you are trying to hit the shit out of the ball does not guarantee you are pocketing a ball on the break either.

Their is limitations on how fast a ball can go.

The hardest tips are phenolic and they are as hard as the cueball itself, anything harder would be damaging the cueball and most leagues, tournaments and pool hall operators are not going to allow you to damage their equipment. You might gain a mile or two an hour from these tips with the hardness bounce like aluminum did for baseball bats. You're not breaking would records.

Next is physical limitaions. How hard are you swinging the cue stick. Their is a diffrence between poundage and speed of stroke.

It would be better to work on a consistent stroke and have a controlled break.
 
Ma, since the tip on this break cue I'm trying is leather, I was able to ''sharpen it'' and see how that ''plays out''.
Now a days, having shafts that are not 13mm but in the 11's is something my generation Never got into.
We were all into watching Irving Crane put together 14.1 racks.

Your thoughts on ''rebound'' are spot on.

Makes me think of the top players after the break that finish with tip, on the play surface (Kaci) and others that don't.
 
maha said:
only way to increase speed is to have something elastic that rebounds. other wise its all about weight and speed of the cue
with your ability to propel it faster.
Click to expand...

No.

Elastic and rebound are contrary to energy conservation. The cueball leaves the tip too quickly for any rebound to occur. If you want the best energy transfer, you want the least compression of the tip and ferrule, and the least bending of the shaft. This is precisely why phenolic break tips were popular.
 
Island Drive said:
Because of a recent article saying 60 degrees is the correct tip curvature to grab and initiate cue ball spin, it started me thinkin' again.
Break sticks hummmmm.... Nowadays they seem to offer a good product to help increase forward cue ball speed.
Ferrule materials also, seem especially important, tho sometimes materials can be illegal.
Here's what I'm gonna try and I can't see How it would not help my break speed, I'll try it on my cheap jumper either way.
I just sanded down my break stick tip to (guessing a 80 degree angle) making the tip very pointed.
Because the curvature of the tip grabs.... how could a pointed tip, not increase forward speed when coming thru the shot?

bm
Click to expand...

A pointy tip is not going to help and at some extreme will begin to reduce the energy transfer.
 
I wont go too much into Dr. Dave's area of expertise, but what you want to look at for faster breaks is Newton's second law, which is

Force = Mass * acceleration.

This is why some people break with light cues, because they can create more acceleration vs having more mass. Find the right weight that works for you. A lighter cue could well help your break speed.

I also think the differnence we mere humans can produce between light vs heavy cues is somewhat minimal and wont affect it that much either way.

A pointy tip will do nothing for break speed.
 
dee,

elastic rebound as i meant it wasnt saying your cue could do it. only if you had it. like a slingshot effect speeds up the projectile.
has nothing to do with conservation of energy.

that there is really no way to speed up your cue ball with the present equipment. other than changing what you use and that would be slight.
 
DeeDeeCues said:
A pointy tip is not going to help and at some extreme will begin to reduce the energy transfer.
Click to expand...
On the other side of the coin when I tried for grins yrs ago breaking with a flat tip.... it created a ''slide'' away from the initial contact point. The two masses were trying to find the ''sweet spot'' :) of which there was NONE.

bm

My brain keeps telling me an 80 degree angled new age break tip would concentrate mass more so with more curvature.
Plus you Probably.... :) wouldn't have to put chalk on the outer edges :).
 
What you want to reduce is the energy lost in the stick-ball collision. Any lost energy will reduce the speed of the cue ball.

One of the most important parts of the collision is the energy stored in the compression of the tip (and ferrule, and shaft, and...). For good efficiency that stored energy must be put into the ball. That is done by the springiness of the tip (and the rest of the stick) that pushes the ball away as the ball leaves the tip. The technical term for the efficiency of the collision is "elasticity".

With perfect elasticity the cue ball will leave the tip at 150% of the incoming speed of the cue stick. That's for a stick three times the weight of the ball, like 18 ounces and 6 ounces.

With zero elasticity -- no push-back during the recovery phase -- the ball will not leave the tip, and they will both go forward together at 75% of the initial speed of the stick.

Back in the 1940s a guy named A.D. Moore measured the efficiency of the hit with a fairly clever set up. He found that for a billiard cue and an ivory ball, the ball left the tip at 130% of the incoming stick speed. The difference between that and 150% was due to energy lost during the collision.

Dr. Dave has a video about testing the "efficiency" of several cue sticks. The most efficient stick was a break stick with a phenolic tip.
 
Island Drive said:
Because of a recent article saying 60 degrees is the correct tip curvature to grab and initiate cue ball spin, it started me thinkin' again.
Break sticks hummmmm.... Nowadays they seem to offer a good product to help increase forward cue ball speed.
Ferrule materials also, seem especially important, tho sometimes materials can be illegal.
Here's what I'm gonna try and I can't see How it would not help my break speed, I'll try it on my cheap jumper either way.
I just sanded down my break stick tip to (guessing a 80 degree angle) making the tip very pointed.
Because the curvature of the tip grabs.... how could a pointed tip, not increase forward speed when coming thru the shot?

bm
Click to expand...
mass x acceleration = force
 
MmmSharp said:
I wont go too much into Dr. Dave's area of expertise, but what you want to look at for faster breaks is Newton's second law, which is

Force = Mass * acceleration.

This is why some people break with light cues, because they can create more acceleration vs having more mass. Find the right weight that works for you. A lighter cue could well help your break speed.

I also think the differnence we mere humans can produce between light vs heavy cues is somewhat minimal and wont affect it that much either way.

A pointy tip will do nothing for break speed.
Click to expand...
I think force = mass * acceleration squared, so reducing the cue's weight to increase its speed is often the easiest way to increase its force into the CB.

pj
chgo
 
maha said:
with todays fast cloth and polished balls accuracy is way more important than speed on the break.
its not quite as manly but more effective.
Click to expand...
Back in the old days it seemed they made the 9 on the break about 3% of the time and sent the cue ball off the table about 10%. The pros have gotten much, much smarter about the break. Part of that is the introduction of the tight rack.
 
DeeDeeCues said:
It is f=ma, and that isn't horrible applicable. Kinetic energy is the applicable equation, which depends on the square of the velocity.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'm sure my terminology could use work, but I believe the cue speed-to-weight tradeoff is real.

pj
chgo
 
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