Cutting down tips
- Thread starter jburkm002
- Start date
To me cutting a tip in half is just cutting it's life expectancy down... Guess it depends on the tip in question as to how much it compresses once installed and how quickly that occurs.....
If you like the grade you bought and shouldn't have bought the next hardness up to be happy leaving it tall shouldn't matter...
I know a lot of guys who buy a soft layered tip and cut it in half and then beat the bejesus out of it... I always think, why not just buy the medium????
With our Ki-Techs I always recommend leaving the tip tall upon installation... 3 months from now they will test within a few points of where they were the day you had em put on....
I have one player who can't stand looking at a tall tip and is OCD about shaping.. In that instance it's psychological and no test results are gonna change anything.....
Chris
I couldn't agreed more
Also, if you cut a tip in half, you lose almost half of the side wall during the shaping process so you end up with a tip that has a very short life.
Ask your cue guy how many chipped or cracked ferrules he has replaced because someone played their tip down too thin... A 5 to 6 ounce hunk of phoenelic versus the thin edge of a ferrule, no contest.
Every advanced player I do tips for want their tip height no more than 1/4" to the top of the radius. They swear by the consistency of always playing with a tip pretty much the same size. Sure, they need tips more often, but they never have to adjust to them.
Last edited:
I had an Ultra Skin tip put on and I did not like it until I cut about a third of it off. Now it plays great. And it will not last as long had i left it full size but these tips are pretty cheap to begin with.
Cheap and good. great combo there.
Cheap and good. great combo there.
.................
Last edited:
Ok so I ordered this tip replacement kit off Seyberts. I also ordered 4 Ultraskin tips. I am no craftsmen and maybe it showed. There were several Porper tools in the kit. Well the tips come larger than 13mm and don't fit in most of the tools. So even after shaving the sides down so they would fit. The tools took chunks out of the tip. I went through 3 tips and still don't have a good tip on. I don't mind spending the money on tip replacements. Just thought it would be nice to try myself. Are there any easier ways to replacing a tip or better tools? Love to get an inexpensive lathe just for tip replacement and shaft cleaning.
Trimming tips flush without a lathe can certainly be done, but it takes a touch and some practice. Ultraskins are one of the easiest tips to trim, but its not unusual to hear you had problems. Find someone with a lathe to do your tip replacements.
A cut down tip plays better than full height. More predictable, more feel. Modern tips don't require as much shaping as some older tips used to, so you can still get decent life out of one.
A cut down tip plays better than full height. More predictable, more feel. Modern tips don't require as much shaping as some older tips used to, so you can still get decent life out of one.
I cant find a decent way to consistently trim one down either without a lathe. Using a razor knife is about the best way, but if you dont use a good new blade every time its easy to gouge or tear the tip. After the glue sets up, i take the shaft and put it tip down on a hard surface and trim the tip slowly this way until i get it close to the ferrule and use fine sandpaper to flush it up with the ferrule. I tried the porper trimmer before and could not get good results with it. Blade dulls quickly and then it tears the tip, and i also had it dig into the ferrule of a cue. I just bought a cheap box cutter, and some good blades. I do one tip, and flip the blade.
I'm fairly sure the tips come high so you can cut them down to the height you want. Just like you should get them over-sized to cut them back to the ferrule for an exact fit. With a dime shape, you'll need more material. I prefer my tips more on the high side and I replace about the time it gets to the thickness between nickel and dime. Not so much because it might crack the ferrule, but because they seem to lose the feel.