WHY A Brass FERRULE ????

Duane Remick said:

I Watch the pros-
O Sullivan. etc
"Their cues look extremely stiff taper, small diameter-BRASS FERULE...
"They get great action from the cue ball
PLEASE POST SOME COMMENTS// Maybe personal experience
THANK YOU

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Most likely because that's what it's always been. People tend to stay with traditional things just like ivory.

To further the question, why do their tips look so "fluffy"?

The tips dont appear burnished, or of a solid shape at all.

It's always been like that is a very strong indication.
Snooker cues live even more in the past than pool cues do (with all that splicing, no weight bolts, no LD constructions, ...).
I will try a Snooker cue shorty and see how it fares (smaller tip for precision training purposes).

I might be that due to their smaller diameter (9mm) there is also more stress to the tip/ferrule - and back then no other material was able to handle that.
Nowadays we have nice composite materials (even the shaft itself can be nicely composited), carbon fiber pads and better glue.

I'd like to see a modern cue being made - and the shooter wipe the floor with all the brass players (the need to counterbalance on strong english shots A LOT and they do miss a lot, too).

Cheers,
M

Interesting comments from Dominic Dale (last paragraph about ferrules):

http://www.worldsnooker.com/all-about-cues/

Airplanes

Most of us now use ski tubes, mine is endorsed by Lindsay Vonn, which will hold three cue cases, and you can split the cost of excess baggage three ways. Without them we might see a lot more damage done to cues.

Thx for the read. I installed a brass ferrule on my break cue.
Ok, so does the player then carry on his case if his cue is tubed and amongst the ck'd luggage? I like that idea, I could always then have my case in hand. I was caught in the Houston flood this past week, luggage came two days later, Huge Foot print on the top of my luggage, glass case inside pool case pocket saved my glasses, got lucky.

To tell you the truth, I don't really know. It does give the cue a very nice, hard hit, but then again many people choose to use Elkmaster and similar soft styles of tips to dampen the hit somewhat. Old English billiards cues sometimes didn't have ferrules (maybe because a great deal of spin is used in that game?) and old snooker house cues sometimes had black fiber ferrules. Other than that, everyone I know that plays snooker has a brass ferrule on their cue.

I actually like the brass ferrule, as it is virtually indestructable. When the ferrule end of the cue gets damaged, it's usually the tenon "shoulder", the part the ferrule is resting on, not the ferrule itself. That's why really old snooker cues (40-50 years or older) are often cut short. The cue breaks before the ferrule. That is troubling, still it takes a lot of abuse for this to happen.

I actually got to try a snooker cue without a brass ferrule (some sort of pool cue material, an experiment) and IMO it felt really weak and strange. Performance wise it worked fine, but the feel was completely different and would take a lot of work getting used to. I hated the feel, but if I had started out using that, I'm sure I'd feel the same about brass. The old fiber housecues are reported to have a decent feel, but I've never tried one.