Aramith Blue Logo Cue Ball

I’ve been participating in an interesting discussion on the 14.1 thread about the best cue ball. It’s reached a point where I think we need far more input than is ever likely to be generated over there, so I’m asking a question over here.

My experience is that the Aramith blue logo cue ball is nearly impervious to chalk, meaning that it stays very clean during play, even if not cleaned for many days of use, or at all. That is in complete contrast to the Aramith red logo ball which ships with the Aramith Super Pro ball set and the Aramith measle ball. All are the same weight and size and appear to have the same finish, but the red logo and the measle ball hold chalk and get very dirty very quickly.

Does anyone have a set of relatively new Aramith Premium balls? Not Premier, the difference is important. This set should have come with an Aramith blue logo cue ball.

I’d like to hear back from people who have the Aramith Premiums as to their experience with that cue ball in this regard. Also, if you wouldn’t mind, use an object ball from that same set as a cue ball and hit it around a little and advise on how it holds or doesn’t hold chalk compared to the blue logo cue ball. The Super Pros hold chalk like the red logo ball they come with.

To complicate this further (where’s the fun in keeping things simple), newer versions of the red logo cue ball, Super Aramith Pro objet balls and Aramith Measle ball may be different from older versions of these same products and behave more like the Aramith blue logo ball, and shed chalk also.

I purchased an Aramith blue logo ball for $9.68 plus shipping, or half the price of the Aramith red logo balls and Aramith measle balls. It arrived today and I've hit it around for an hour and it looks almost like I didn't play with it.

At first I was a little concerned since the chalk from the first couple hits was showing on the cue ball, but as I used it, this dust seemed to fall off without leaving any residual scuff marks. On my measle ball and red logo ball, this is not the case, they just get dirtier and dirtier and beg to be cleaned after every session.

I have used Brillianize and Novus Plastic Clean and Shine on my Aramiths Pros, the red logo ball and the measle ball over the years (I've had them 6 years), but this problem with the cue balls was what prompted me to find a good plastic cleaner in the first place, it didn't cause the problem, nor do I think their use has worsened the problem.

I have not used anything on the blue log ball, and if it holds up like Saturated Fat's blue logo ball, I don't expect I'll need to.

Bavafongoul said:

What is the specific gram weight of the blue Aramith ball? It should match the weight of object balls.
Based upon my experience with other brand cue balls & sets, the weight should be 168 -169 grams.

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The Blue logo ball weighed 167 and the red logo ball weighed 168 grams.

LWD said:

Okay, I have a relatively new set of Aramith Premium balls (<6 mos. old) with the blue logo cue ball and an Aramith measles ball that is about 1 year old.

I cleaned the table, cleaned both cue balls with Aramith ball cleaner, pulled out a new cube of Masters blue chalk, and shot one rack of 9-ball with each cue ball. I found no discernible difference in the cue marks left on the two balls--there were noticeable marks on both balls.

Under these conditions, I found no difference between the two cue balls.

(I took a photo of results, if I can figure out how to post it here.)

(Forgot to mention that I chalk before each shot.)

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Before you take the time to learn about posting photos, can you shoot more with each ball? As I mentioned in the above post (#7) you can see the chalk after the first few hits, but it seems to fall off on the subsequent hits so that after awhile (I shot 150 balls for my 1st test) the ball still looked great. I too was chalking up normally, before every shot, ordinary Master chalk.

BTW, thanks for taking the time to do this.

LWD said:

Before I do that, did you control for new vs. not new cue balls? Your blue logo ball was new, right. Did anyone try a new measles ball? When new, Aramith balls seem to resist marking/loss of sheen much longer than other balls. May have something to do with the finish when new.

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I did not test a new measle ball, as I did not have access to one, though I remember having the problem when I started to use my new measle ball 6 years ago. You would be smart to not put a lot of confidence in my memory, however, so I would agree that such a test is warranted.

I did test a "new" red logo ball, in that when I bought my set of Aramith Super Pro balls six years ago I bought an Aramith measle ball at the same time. When they arrived I put the red logo ball on the shelf and used the measle ball exclusively. I just started to use the red logo ball after playing with Saturated Fats' blue logo ball and agreeing with him about how much cleaner it looked and stayed than the house Aramith measle balls.

My experience with this "new" red logo ball is that it held chalk very badly immediately upon use (say a couple hundred hits). You could clean it off relatively easily with a microfiber cloth and a good plastic cleaner like Brillianize or Novus, but it looked awful before doing so. Also, while my blue logo ball hasn't yet seen much use, that is not true of Saturated Fats' ball. I know it has at least 1,000 hits from many games of 14.1 with him, but I believe he's been using it quite a while.

I would see this "new" red logo ball as the same as new since it has not been used before nor had it ever been cleaned with anything, but it did sit on a shelf for 6 years.

I wasn't suggesting that the blue logo ball was superior because it drew better or behaved differently from other cue balls in some useful way other than that it seems to shed chalk like no other cue ball I've seen. I see this as a good thing, though if the ball had other behaviors that differred from what we expect I wouldn't think it was a good trade off.

The most important thing I'd like to learn is do others agree that this ball is superior in this one characteristic, i.e., does it stay clean better than other high quality cue balls?

Since this ball comes with the Aramith Premium set and the red logo ball and the measle ball come packaged with the much more expensive Super Pro balls, I would have thought the blue logo ball was inferior to the red logo ball. It does not seem to be, it actually seems superior, so I'm seeking information to see whether this is true, and why.