Cyclop ball roll

... Most people can however take a piece of glass out of a picture frame etc and be able to do a quick test on their coffee table. ...
Try it with any set. Let me know how it goes. In particular, how does it correlate with funny rolls on the table?
 
Try it with any set. Let me know how it goes. In particular, how does it correlate with funny rolls on the table?

The people complaining about them are basically saying that they are so far out of round that you can see where the logo and numbers stick up from the rest of the ball. The people who defend them blame the table cloth and or debris on the table.
So in my mind, a fair test of checking roundness not on a pool table is rolling them on a hard flat surface, such as a pane of glass, or as we have several cuemakers etc on the site, maybe one has a granite surface plate. Any protrusion of the ball will be readily visible if the ball is rolled over a surface defect as big as the logo etc sticking up.
A regular dining table etc might be fine, but something that is known to be flat such as the glass or surface plate takes away any possible unevenness that a wooden table might have.
I have no horse in the race, I just think it would help to figure out whats going on, because both sides swear theyre correct, but thats not really feasible.
Chuck
 
For a ball to roll straight it needs to be round and have the center of mass at the geometrical center. Some balls are not round and some have misplaced centers. Some cue balls are really bad for being off-center -- I used to own one of those until I tried a bunch of lags with it. Object balls can be off-center as well. It is easy but tedious to measure whether a ball is off-center.

A very good pool ball is still a few thousandths out of round (.002-.003). This can also apply to the weights of balls in a full set of fifteen. All fifteen balls are never the exact same weight, with typical variations being .003-.005%. There are many cheaper sets of pool balls where the variances are as much as .005-.007.
 
Look at this cueball when it rolls to a stop after the shot. It's mid slate so clearly not hitting a slate line.

http://youtu.be/vfzymZdMlJo?t=20m7s

Looks like its rolling a bit off center and wobbling to me. Does the same thing next shot, almost stops then rolls to the side a bit.


Before wondering about the CB on a couple of shots, I'd be wondering about the table, of unknown manufacture and construction, set up on a tile floor, in what appears to be a game arcade.

Personally, I've been playing with a set of Cyclop now for several weeks and have seen no roll offs.

Lou Figueroa
 
I have no horse in the race, I just think it would help to figure out whats going on, because both sides swear theyre correct, but thats not really feasible.

But maybe they both are correct.

No one is saying that every ball is a bad one. It may be a quality control issue. I know when Albany Billiard Ball Co. was making them in my area there were defective balls strewn around the property. I imagine they represented only a fraction of the balls that were rejected.

They also used to grind balls down and re-coat them with fresh resin to make good balls. That practice seems to be doomed to producing out of balance balls. Maybe these went into their lowest quality ball sets, I'm not sure, but Aramith does the same as has been shown here with pics of cracked cue balls showing another ball underneath. Perhaps ABBC and Aramith just had better quality control measures in place.

Anyway, in today's pool world one rotten cue ball can spoil a barrel of public opinion if that ball makes its way onto the TV table of a well publicized match. IMO the burden of proof should be on the players to demonstrate consistency in ball rolloff in an objective test as you've mentioned (although you'd need a machinist level and a ground surface plate to do a proper experiment). After all, it is impossible for Cyclop to prove that every ball they make is within allowable tolerances, which is actually the null hypothesis in this case.
 
I've been playing with a set of cyclop about once a week at a local pool hall, and I can honestly say that I haven't noticed any odd things with any of the balls. I think they roll a little further because they are more polished than the other sets in the pool hall, but other than that I'm happy with them.
 
I've seen thousands of balls roll like this, if you haven't, you haven't played much pool.
If you don't like the color, say you don't like the color. But to sit here and constantly bash one of the few company's that's actually sponsoring pool is just rediculous! If you're gonna bash them, then you better bash every other company out there too. Same rolls with all sets of balls.

Btw, I don't like the color, but it may grow on me
Jason
 
I've been playing with these balls since August. One room I play in has diamonds with cyclop ball and another has diamonds with aramith. The cyclop balls roll funny. Especially the CB. I've brushed and vacuumed the table and it ain't dirt. The CB rolls off towards the logo.

Ben
 
Try it with any set. Let me know how it goes. In particular, how does it correlate with funny rolls on the table?

I think what Mr. Fields is suggesting is to remove all of the variables possible to test the cue ball. Not sure why you think this is a bad idea but it makes sense to me. As long as you test a suspect ball on a pool tale you are always going to have variables. Maybe a piece of chalk, a seam, the weave in the cloth, levelness of table etc. will affect the roll of the ball one time but not the next time. As far as a go-no go gauge you could still have an out of round ball pass this test. That also does not take into affect an unusually weighted ball. A granite surface would remove al of the above variables.
 
Cyclop

My question is this-

Why choose two of the weirdest colors possible,
(Four really, 6/7 and 14/15)
And keep all the others the same?

It's like a bad sharking move to me..
 
Back
Top