Balls. Do they shrink or do they wear?

Sloppy Pockets

Sloppy Pockets

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I've read on here and from several other sources that pool balls wear down over time. Some folks say that the ball polishers cause it, some say it's the dirty cloth, some that it's the chalked tip hitting the ball hundreds of thousands of times.

So about a month or so ago I decided to measure my Amamith Premier set, and I was a bit shocked to find that the balls averaged about 2.246" instead of 2.250", or .004" reduction in size already. The balls have only been in use for about two years for maybe one to two hours use per day at the most (hardly commercial room conditions), and I don't use a ball polisher at the present time.

Curiously, I was not able to get a single reading on my measles CB that was less 2.250" no matter where on the ball I measured it. This stuck me as odd since this is the ball gets all the tip hits, most of the spin against the cloth, and (outside of Kentucky) most of the hits against the rails. The object balls, for the most part, are rolling toward their destination most of the time. Then I remembered that the measles ball was only six months, so maybe no wear had occurred yet.

Fast forward to yesterday when I decided to get some data on my new Centennial set. They were brand new in the box when I got them a few weeks ago, but they were supposed to be twenty years old or so, leftover stock from a guy who closed his room years ago.

Much to my shock, all of the Cents measure about 2.240" =/- .001" or so. That's a .010" reduction in size in balls that have never even been hit! That includes the blue circle CB as well. To make matters even more confusing, the Cents are actually about a gram heavier on the average than the larger Premiers (167gr. vs. 166 gr.). So, if wear is causing the change in diameter you'd think they'd weigh less as well. BTW the measles ball weighs 168 gr.

How can this be? Were these things shrinking over time just sitting in the box?
 
Pool balls will reduce in size from extended wear and tear, i.e., normal play. I previously posted a link in reply to another similar thread that forward you to an article by Bob Frey that explained what happens to pool balls and why.

Maybe that's why the rules in pocket billiards specify under the equipment specifications that the pool balls can vary as much as 1/2 ounce and the balls are still legal to use in sanctioned professional and amateur tournaments.
 
Bavafongoul said:
Pool balls will reduce in size from extended wear and tear, i.e., normal play. I previously posted a link in reply to another similar thread that forward you to an article by Bob Frey that explained what happens to pool balls and why.

Maybe that's why the rules in pocket billiards specify under the equipment specifications that the pool balls can vary as much as 1/2 ounce and the balls are still legal to use in sanctioned professional and amateur tournaments.
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Yes, I saw that. Perhaps I wasn't clear, though. These Centennials have never been in play, so no wear was possible.

When I got them, they were slightly yellowed from not being in use, but they still had that beautiful factory polish on them, way shinier than the Diamond polisher gets them. Below is a photo of them as they arrived in a near-perfect looking box. As you can see, there's not even the faintest evidence of a hairline scratch anywhere on them, just a mirror polish.

I'm sure the seller was telling me the truth and these were new old stock. It would have been nearly impossible to recondition these balls to this state if they had been worn by that much use, and surely not worth the bother just to throw them up on Ebay.
 

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Don't think it's wear.
My guess would be shrinkage due to the composite of the material, PHENOLIC RESIN.
Any resin will shrink during the manufacturing process. So I guess with punishing wear and tear may not be the cause of shrinkage, but will:
- friction which generates heat.
- heavy lighting condition generating heat
- heated room temperatures

Very minor however over a period of time shrinkage would be natural. But it's not wear or tear as the balls i'm guessing are not damaged and are still spherically accurate to the naked eye?

However it would be interested to measure the balls say after a long playing session. It would be my guess that the balls may expand causing an increase in size before cooling down after long practice session causing minor shrinkage?

One things for sure - Aramith are the best on the market and what's the worst thing that could happen?

You spend many hours practicing the game you love
I'd be interested in any conclusions you may bring :thumbup:
 
Bella Don't Cry said:
Don't think it's wear.
My guess would be shrinkage due to the composite of the material, PHENOLIC RESIN.
Any resin will shrink during the manufacturing process. So I guess with punishing wear and tear may not be the cause of shrinkage, but will:
- friction which generates heat.
- heavy lighting condition generating heat
- heated room temperatures

Very minor however over a period of time shrinkage would be natural. But it's not wear or tear as the balls i'm guessing are not damaged and are still spherically accurate to the naked eye?

However it would be interested to measure the balls say after a long playing session. It would be my guess that the balls may expand causing an increase in size before cooling down after long practice session causing minor shrinkage?

One things for sure - Aramith are the best on the market and what's the worst thing that could happen?

You spend many hours practicing the game you love
I'd be interested in any conclusions you may bring :thumbup:
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H-mmmmm...

Now, I hadn't thought about temperature effects, but I do keep the room the table is in pretty cool. However, the Premiers are definitely bigger by several thousandths, and they are kept in the same room. I brought several of both types upstairs where it's about ten degrees warmer. I'll measure them in a few hours and see if they changed size at all. I doubt that is the reason, but I have to rule it out first.

Personally, I don't really care. They look great and play great, too. They rack fine as well, even on my Accu-Rack templates (you do need to fuss just a bit, but the balls will freeze every time). I just feel that the idea of post-manufacturing shrinkage hasn't been mentioned anywhere I've read, so I think this is something that needs further examination given what I've discovered.
 
Also

Heck mine not only shrink and wear they both are starting to sag!!!

Wedge
 
The balls at our community center have shrunk. I don't know how old they are but "ancient" comes to mind.

I first noticed it when I bought an Aramith Measles CB. I could easily see the difference with the two CBs side-by-side.

The CB is the smallest ball in the set. The one-ball is the next smallest. After that the rest of the balls are about the same. That tells me that the shrinkage is collision-induced.

I have no idea why unused balls would shrink. Sure, even phenolic resin has a water content but it's probably 0.000001%. Even if half the water evaporated we wouldn't be able to measure the difference. Curious.
 
both. if you notice the balls are actually bouncy and elastic in a sense, physically they can give. be careful, sometimes at pool halls they will give you a set of balls that are not matched, this can make a difference if you hop tables.
 
A set of balls used mostly for hard breaking 9-ball will prove considerable wear.

Just check out the cueball and 1-ball.

They take all the hard impact and you will see the result.

:groucho:
 
Since I last posted, I just bought a brand new set of Brunswick Centennial pool balls from Hookmehorns this morning that will arrive in a few days. I always like to have a back-up set of pool balls just in case anything ever happened to the first set. Mo tells me this set is brand new and not some old, dealer left-over inventory. Mo can be trusted and I've previously purchased two prior sets of Brunswick Centennial pool balls from him.

I played with one set and kept the other set as a back-up. I sold the first set I was playing with to a buddy locally and only started using the other set July 4th weekend which is when I sold the first set. I also stopped using my current set of Centennials on September 30th because I had rotator cuff surgery on October 1st. This set has maybe 100 hours of actual play since I took the second set off the shelf this past July.

I've previously posted on the Forum about cue ball differences and other pool ball sets' related threads where I quoted cue ball and object specs. When the new Centennial set arrives, I'll weigh each object ball and the Centennial cue ball which I'll also do with my other Centennial set that's relatively new but has seen probably under a 100 hours of play. I'll measure every ball in both sets and I have three (3) Measles cue Balls.....two used.........one for probably 250-300 hours and the other under 15 hours and one brand new Measles Ball. I also have a Aramith red logo cue ball and a Jim Rempe Training Cue Ball as well.

Anyway, I use a Ohaus Triple Beam for my main scale weight and have a electronic Food Meter scale as a back-up confirmation of the results which kind of seems silly since I have to calibrate the Triple Beam every time it's used, even if it's merely a hair pin adjustment of the scale. And afterwards, you can verify with your own eyes the Ohaus scale is balanced and dead-on accurate. I have two electronic calipers (6" & 12") that I use to measure pool cues and pool balls. So as you can see, I have the necessary tools to weigh, measure and compare my Centennial sets and also the other cue balls. And so my measurement results should be reliable and very accurate.

I'll report back the results of my measurements of the two Centennial sets.
 
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So, I left the balls on my kitchen counter for a couple hours. I used my IR thermometer to take the external temps, and waited until they stop rising. They went from 65º in the basement to about 73º. I set my Starrett micrometer to 1" and measured across the gap to be sure that my dial calipers were calibrated correctly and got a perfect reading of 1", so I'm pretty sure they're accurate enough for the purpose.

I then set the dial caliper gap for 2.240" and locked the jaws in place. Then I picked up each ball and tried to see if it would pass through the gap. Not one of them would pass as they had earlier, so I went to 2.241" and they still wouldn't go through. I eyeballed an extra 5 tenths on the dial and locked the jaws. Some balls would pass through but it depended on how I rotated them. I set the dial to 2.242" and now they would all pass through the steel jaws. This tells me that the balls did expand slightly due to the increased temperature (about .0015" to .0020"), but nowhere near the .008" they appear to have shrunk.

The measles ball expanded by .001" and measured 2.251" across all points at 73ºF, just for the record.

My conclusion is that the balls probably did their shrinking while sitting in a box for 20+ years. I know next to nothing about phenolic resins, nor would I know which particular formulations Aramith uses. I did find a bit on the Interwebs about phenolic foams shrinking, but couldn't make heads or tails of the multi-page document to find out why. I know a lot of cue makers use phenolics, but I believe they are usually canvas reinforced types. Maybe Bob Dzuricky will chime in, he seems pretty well-versed on the subject of phenolics.
 
Bavafongoul said:
Since I last posted, I just bought a brand new set of Brunswick Centennial pool balls from Hookmehorns this morning that will arrive in a few days. I always like to have a back-up set of pool balls just in case anything ever happened to the first set. Mo tells me this set is brand new and not some old, dealer left-over inventory. Mo can be trusted and I've previously purchased two prior sets of Brunswick Centennial pool balls from him.

I played with one set and kept the other set as a back-up. I sold the first set I was playing with to a buddy locally and only started using the other set July 4th weekend which is when I sold the first set. I also stopped using my current set of Centennials on September 30th because I had rotator cuff surgery on October 1st. This set has maybe 100 hours of actual play since I took the second set off the shelf this past July.

I've previously posted on the Forum about cue ball differences and other pool ball sets' related threads where I quoted cue ball and object specs. When the new Centennial set arrives, I'll weigh each object ball and the Centennial cue ball which I'll also do with my other Centennial set that's relatively new but has seen probably under a 100 hours of play. I'll measure every ball in both sets and I have three (3) Measles cue Balls.....two used.........one for probably 250-300 hours and the other under 15 hours and one brand new Measles Ball. I also have a Aramith red logo cue ball and a Jim Rempe Training Cue Ball as well.

Anyway, I use a Ohaus Triple Beam for my main scale weight and have a electronic Food Meter scale as a back-up confirmation of the results which kind of seems silly since I have to calibrate the Triple Beam every time it's used, even if it's merely a hair pin adjustment of the scale. And afterwards, you can verify with your own eyes the Ohaus scale is balanced and dead-on accurate. I have two electronic calipers (6" & 12") that I use to measure pool cues and pool balls. So as you can see, I have the necessary tools to weigh, measure and compare my Centennial sets and also the other cue balls. And so my measurement results should be reliable and very accurate.

I'll report back the results of my measurements of the two Centennial sets.
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That will be very helpful.

I know mine are very old because they came in the white box with blue lettering on it. I believe they are the first ones that were made after Saluc was awarded the Brunswick contract. The box says "Made in Belgium" on it, so they're definitely not from Albany Ball Co.

The guy I got my table from restores antique tables. His shop is in downtown Albany, not too far from where Albany Ball was originally making them. He's coming out on Friday to do some work on my table. He's been at it since he was a kid, so I'm sure he's seen a lot of older balls. I think I'll call him and ask if he has any old Cents lying around from when they were made in Albany. It would be interesting to add them to the comparisons.

BTW have you ever cleaned out the magnetic damping on your Ohaus? I used to use a lot of 0000 steel wool in my shop and it would get it between the magnets and dampening arms and give false readings. Every now and then I slip a piece of masking tape in there and I almost always pull out some steel wool that ended up in there. After that it works like a charm.:smile:
 
Sloppy Pockets said:
... So about a month or so ago I decided to measure my Amamith Premier set, and I was a bit shocked to find that the balls averaged about 2.246" instead of 2.250", or .004" reduction in size already. ...
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Did you measure them when they were new? If not, it's quite possible that they were not 2.250" when new.

What's more important than the absolute diameter (or weight) of the balls is the consistency across the set. For example, I'd rather have a set that is 2.246" ± .002" than a set that is 2.250" ± .010".

In another post, you say that Brunswick claims a tolerance of ± .001" for the Centennials. That just refers to the differences among the balls, not that they are all within .001" of 2.250".
 
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I had problems when I was doing my own reloads but I gave that up 10 years ago. The fineness of the gunpowder was like dust and if I was a little sloppy, it was a cleaning chore.
 
On the Brunswick website, it reads under product description for Centennial Pool Ball Sets.....

"Centennial® Pocket Balls are the standard of excellence in the industry. Made with premium-grade phenolic resin, Centennial® balls are ground and polished to exacting radial tolerances of 0.001 of an inch for absolutely true and accurate roll. Components are solid cast and "vitrified," or heat fused, for a homogeneous molecular bond. A translucent ivory hue, lustrous color, and a unique "dart" identify Centennial® Balls. With resiliency and balance that allows hairline accuracy, and with numbers and colors that will not rub off, spot, or fade, Centennial® Balls are superior in both playing quality and appearance."

I've heard people rave about the Cyclop line and also Raschig.........you know neither is as handsome or as vibrant, rich looking and colorful as the Centennial line.....and the design on the Centennials is just exquisite. The set looks gorgeous under a pool lights in a darkened room that helps accentuate the color color contrast of the different Centennial object balls and the green felt.

I can't hep but wonder if the governing pool bodies all recognized the cost of manufacturing a perfect set of matched pool balls was just cost prohibitive and that's why the rules allow for variation is weight and size of the balls. The equipment specs actually state there is an allowable weight variation of up to 1/2 once in the pool ball weights. Did you ever play with a Measles Cue Ball and switch to a red dot cue ball or vice versa? Did the cue ball come up short or long until you figured it out?

My Centennial set weighs 168 grams each, including the cue ball. My Measles cue ball is 169 grams....pretty close. The red dot cue ball in my pool hall weighs 157 grams......and I weighed 8 red dot cue balls........wonder why you can draw a red dot cue ball on a 9' table down the table length, off the rail and back where you started.......the cue ball is hitting a heavier object ball and so the draw is amplified by the unreleased energy stored in the cue ball by hitting a draw stroke. It's like there's more coils in a spring that still need to be released.

From what I've seen, Brunswick Centennial sets, at least the red & black box version, have extremely tight specs and tend to be extremely close in comparison for every ball in the set. And besides, it's the most handsome pool ball design I've seen. Does anyone really prefer the look of the Cyclop or Raschig sets? None of the Aramith pro series looks better either. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and my eye says Brunswick Centennials hold the #1 spot for looks.
 
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I think there's a good chance they all start out a bit small. I just bought brand new red circle and blue dot cue balls that measured 2.24 inches, one-thousandth less than the standard 2.25. I also measured Wedge's nearly new red circle cue ball to be 2.24, same one-thousandth small.

You could say my calipers are off, but I don't think so. They square up perfectly with my Brown and Sharpe calipers that get down to the ten-thousandth of an inch, for less than one inch items. In other words, I think the factory tends to polish down a bit rigouously to get the shine, to the point that the finished product is even a bit small.

Having said all that, I think it's wear, not shrinkage that's at play here. Take a look at a very old cue ball at your pool hall. It's not just a bit small, it's almost 1/16th of an inch or more. That's wear, not shrinkage. Balls can't shrink that much...
 
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