Tokyo-dave said:
The "BDX" for the Japanese market. Here in Japan, the 'billy' part of Hilbilly would be pronounced closer to "bi-ri" with a rolled r. So the letters BD put together would sound exactly the same as the Japanese pronounciation for 'billly'. Throw your X at the end of BD and you have the BDX.
By the way, I went to ER Sports the other day, and they were sold out of the 2nd generation X-breakers and were waiting for the 3rd generation. When are you expecting to send the next batch? And what are the improvements that the guy at ER Sports was talking about?
dave
Hi Dave,
Thank you for your suggestion, and for visiting ER Sport, our dealer in Japan. Thank you for your interest in the X Breaker.
We are always trying to improve our X Breaker, as we believe cue making is a process of continuous improvement. A lot of the improments are made based on comment we have received from professional players and customers of ours. Through listening to their feedback, we have learned a lot more about the break, and what customers want in a break cue in general. So we made improvements accordingly in order to offer our customers what they want.
This new batch will be quite different from the previous version. I will outline the improvements as follows,
1. Our X Breaker will feature some very nicely figured curly maple rather than birdseye maple from now on. We have found a very good source of curly maple with very nice and consistent grains. A lot of our customers have told us they like birdseye maple but they think it is kind of common, they want something a bit more exotic and rare.
2. The whole butt section will be cored with a special coring section. This coring can further reduce unwanted sideway vibration of the cue. Besides, this core which goes down the entire central section of the butt can help to transmitt the axial vibration(feedback) more effectively and consistently. Coring also prevents the butt from warpage, and produces a more consistent balance.
We core our butt section first before we made the cut at the jump/break joint. We try to build the cue as solid as a one piece cue.
3. We have made some improvements on our ring works. We will no longer use metal rings. All our phenolic rings are now threaded and glued. We have added a "rambow" style white butt ring to the butt, with a very classical style joint, with a white phenolic joint sandwiched by black joint collars.
Some of our customers want to use their X Breaker as their playing cues. They told us they prefer to see a black joint collar being used on the shaft so they can match their playing shafts easier to their X Breakers. We changed our joint to satisfy their needs.
We have always wanted to combine a classical look featuring old school design with the latest technology. We think it will also add more value to the cues for our customers.
4. We will use Auto UV finish from now on to offer our customers the most durable and "wet look" finish.
5. We have been doing a lot of research on the tip, and we are very excited about a new breakthrough in our technology. This new tip will be strong(with a higher compressive strength) yet tough (a different modulus of elasticity) and it will feature a different configuration with a different ferrule material. The tip will have a different shape, and color.
This new set up will help the players to park the cue ball much more effectively. I do not really want to go into this too much at this point, but I will explain it when we are launching this new lines, hopefully, in late July/August.
6. We are also offering a leather tip IPT version for our new models. This leather tip version will feature a new leather tip we have invented. The shaft will feature a very short ferrule built with the Xtreme tip material. The tip is made with a water buffalo leather which has been heated treated and compressed in a pressurized chamber with a special resin for an extensive period of time. This tip is harder than any leather tip on the market now, and yet still display the regular leather properties such as its ability to hold chalk. The interest thing is that it is much tougher on the outside than inside, so it is strong and yet sensitive. Please refer to the picture attached(the picture shows the tip just out of the pressurized chamber, with a lot of the resin attached to its rim.)
7. We will also offer some new models built with an exotic wood handle in the near future. With the coring technology, we can control the balance and use some heavier woods on the handle. Attached are pictures of some prototypes we have built.
8. We will offer an upgrade option for all those who have owned an original X Breaker because we want to make it as easy as possible for them to enjoy our latest technology. Details will be announced soon.
I should be able to fill the order placed by ER Sport in late July. We have been through a period of total insanity in the last few months. Thank you so much for all your patience.
I hope this answers your questions.
Thank you once again for your interest in the X Breaker.
Richard