18.5 oz too light for a break cue?

timothysoong

timothysoong

TS Billiards
Gold Member
Silver Member
I want to order a thorhammer from
joss and i havent got my hands on the cue yet. So idk what weight id get.

Im used to playing with a light cue, like
my mezz axi-n i have to removed the weight bolt, its around 19oz i guess.

And joss mentioned 18.5 is too light for a break cue, they wont deliver enough power being that light. And all standard break cues are 19.5oz.

So well, I'm confused :\

Please help!

Tim


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Not to light at all. I got a used ob break the other day and it was 17oz. Felt nice but bought a weight bokt kit from ozonebilliards for 10.00 to match the weight of my player. Order whatver weight u want and get the kit and experament.
 
I used to break with a 16 oz cue, its all about how you hit them. There are a lot of other factors that go into a good break (cloth, rack, the atmosphere, etc.) I personally feel that if you are comfortable with delivering a smooth level stroke on target you will be successful regardless of the weight of your cue.
 
To me 18.5 is a little on the heavy side im an 18 ouncer my self but can anybody tell the diffrence from 18.00 ounces and 18.50 ?

Im pretty sure i can't and congrats with the new Break Cue that cue is on my wish list...
 
I've said this a couple times. Weight on your breaker should be as close as possible to you shooter, if you don't use your shooter. Your body is use to swing that cue on every other shot. The break shot is just a different, and most important shot. Your muscle memory is for x.x-oz, use that to break, and you will see an improvement, slight or large. It's different for every one. the only reason I ever use a break cue is to prevent blowing the tip off my player.

Best of luck,

Justin
 
break = speed

as in golf, baseball and tennis, breaking pool i believe speed over mass gives you a better break. i can move an 18 oz cue faster than i can a 22 oz cue so i get better breaks with a 18 oz cue.
i made a cue with a solid stainless steel forearm the cue weights 32 oz, its a fun cue to have around, every one that plays at my house, picks it up and says ' man this would make a great break cue ', but after they try then they decide its a lousy break cue.
you do need mass. but speed is more important.
 
There are a couple of schools of thought on break cues:

• As heavy as you can handle (27 oz. or some such)
• As light as possible (15 oz. or some such)
• Other (match your playing cue... or use some specific weight like 19.5)

And the last one, the scientific one, as seen on Dr. Dave's page -

• It depends on your body and the type of muscles you've got.

There are 'fast-twitch' and 'slow-twitch' muscles. People are born with more of one than the other. Fast twitch are desirable, for breaking. They allow you to generate as much force as possible, as fast as possible. The 'world's strongest man' has lots of fast-twitch fibers because he can immediately apply all his strength into one concentrated task, which enables him to do crazy stuff like bend frying pans.

Slow twitch just gives you endurance, not as important for the break obviously.

So the weight that works best is a matter of experimenting. I think you want as much weight as your own fast-twitch muscles can swing without losing too much speed. It may be 18.5, 19.5, even 20.5. I personally went with a 15 oz. but I think that was overkill. My next will be 17.

I wouldn't commit to an expensive break cue until you have tried a variety of weights and know which one works the best for you. It's definitely not one-size-fits-all. And there's also the issue of the balance point, which has some relationship to your arm length. If the balance is off, it increases the odds your tip will swerve off-center during your swing.
 
See? That just shows that even somebody like Joss doesn't know all the answers. I have used a 13 oz and generated plenty of power to open the rack and pocket balls. I usually break with my playing cue, which is 18 oz., and seem to have no trouble getting it to work efficiently.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

D-X69 said:
And joss mentioned 18.5 is too light for a break cue, they wont deliver enough power being that light. And all standard break cues are 19.5oz.

So well, I'm confused :\

Please help!

Tim


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
 
Definitely not too light.

I prefer a break cue about a 1/2oz lighter than my player which is about 18.5

My break has been clocked as high as 31 MPH with it fwiw.
 
17 oz. breaker and an 18.5 player here. I can swing the 17 much faster than a 21 or heavier cue.
 
Last edited:
Timely topic - I just saw an advert thinly disguised as an instructional lesson in the newish P&B magazine.

The Drill Sgt is shilling a personal-branded J/B cue. To that end, he generated a chart showing break speed vs cue weight over a range. After air-barreling his way through an explanation of the Conservation of Momentum equation, he arrives at a conclusion and proclaims that a 14oz break cue is the best. (tada!)

FWIW - As an engineer myself, Dr. Dave is my source for billiards physics principles. He at least wrote a 'textbook' on the subject!
 
If you know what weight you want, just specify that to whoever you order from. I have a Thor Hammer, and when I ordered, I told them I wanted one that had a lighter weight. I'm sure you could specify the weight you want.

I believe the weights of the Thor Hammer varies.
 
desi2960 said:
as in golf, baseball and tennis, breaking pool i believe speed over mass gives you a better break. i can move an 18 oz cue faster than i can a 22 oz cue so i get better breaks with a 18 oz cue.
i made a cue with a solid stainless steel forearm the cue weights 32 oz, its a fun cue to have around, every one that plays at my house, picks it up and says ' man this would make a great break cue ', but after they try then they decide its a lousy break cue.
you do need mass. but speed is more important.
Click to expand...

I'm with Chuck on this. I have always broke better with a lighter break cue than my playing cue. I would say 1oz. lighter would be perfect :thumbup2:
 
It's a matter of finding the right weight that gives you the most control for the most effective spread of the balls on the break. And that requires some experimentation on trying different weights for breaking.

Years ago I spent one morning while at work at Billiards & Sports in Medford, Ore, testing different cue weights for breaking only. In our cue stock we had cues starting at 17 oz and going on up to 21.5 oz in 1/2 oz increments. So I proceeded to test each weight. And I broke 5 times with each weight. I found that with the 17 oz cue I would get a great break at the start but invariably most of the balls in the rack came back together in groups which really was not all that effective. At 17.5 and 18 oz the spread on the break was pretty similar, although I felt that at 18 oz I was keeping the balls spread pretty wide with no ball groupings. At 17.5 oz I would still the the occasional group or 2. As I went further up in weights I found that I was not generating the same level of power, and that the spread of the balls was not as widely separated across the table as when I broke with a lighter weight cue. And it seemed to me that I still got ball groups on the table with the heavier weight cues for breaking on par with what I got at the lightest weight cue of 17 oz. So for myself, I settled on 18 oz as my breaking cue weight. In the course of all my playing time I have found that my best overall playing weight is between 18.5 and 19 oz. Therefore when I sold cues to customers I generally advised that when it came to getting a breaking cue that they get about an ounce lighter that what their normal playing weight was.

But I have also had cue customers that were lumberjacks who were 3 to 4 times my size come in the store and want the heaviest possible break cue. And we would order up a Schmelke cue at 26, 27 and even 28 oz. And considering the size of the players, I was like whatever works for you is fine with me.

So that's my advice based on my experimental experience. Your results may vary.
 
I have a predator BK 2 break stick I ordered it years ago at 21oz never liked the hit. Took the weight bolt out stick has been 18.5 oz basically for 10 plus years. Never had a second thought and it breaks great
 
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