I have been playing with the hard for about 5 months now installed it with rapid fuse and no pad.....No problems. My ferrule is real ivory. Great tip alot of english and control even with the hard tip...Thanks will buy more.
You can also get it professionally stabilized....Kand G out of arizona...will stabilize snakewood for you. http://www.kandgstabilizing.com/
Call them and talk with them, they will explain what they do.
Yes this is my case very happy with it.....it is a beast but thats what I wanted,would not hesitate to have dinko make me another.....only this time I would spring for some better shipping...took 52 days from Croatia....certainly not Dinkos fault