I would like to clarify (for me) input from the forum with regards to what cue tip (layered or otherwise) to use or hardness of cue tip to use on your playing cue. The majority of advice seems to be that you should use a break stick for braking because of potential tip damage causing it to mushroom and become too hard to play with makes me wonder how long do you think a soft tip plays as a soft tip before it becomes a medium tip and finally becomes a hard tip due to continual pounding? After three months, six months, or a year of use do you think it possible to tell what the tip would have been originally? I know of a billiard supplies dealer in Oregon who did a study on various tips hardness at instalation and then at above intervals using a durometer to measure hardness. Do you think tips remain the same or close to the same as they were originally for the duration of their useful life?
Changes in cue tip hardness
- Thread starter Doug
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Doug said:
Tips are a matter of prefrence, no one can say what is best for another. They might get close but in the end it's a personal decision. An elkmaster, known for being a soft tip, will get hard before it needs replaced. So will all others for that matter, the exception being a phenolic tip. As to how fast they get hard, who knows. It really depends on how much play time is on the tip. It is a rather open ended question, so it's difficult to make a statement without disclaimers.
In the context your question was asked, yes they all get hard. It's just a hard tip goes through less change.
Rod