Has anyone else experienced this problem?
Cyclop balls cracking
- Thread starter Roger Long
- Start date
When they first came out there was some reports of balls cracking if they were played with a LOT. It seems they fixed this on later "runs" of the balls. Cyclops is no longer in business (at least in the US), so these balls will eventually fade into oblivion.
Thanks for the info. I suppose that's pretty common knowledge here on AZB, but I haven't been on here in a long while or else I would have already known that. It's probably safest to stick with any ball made by Aramith rather than jump on the bandwagon of the latest thing.
Always
Don't know what you are talking about, no issues with them, nothing to see, move along.
.... at least they are being nice about it and cracking down the middle in most cases, very efficient and balanced of them.
Clean crack. Squirt some super glue in there, clamp it down hard in a vise, and you'll be good to go. It's better to use some rubber pads in the jaws of the vise but it's not absolutely necessary.
Cyclop balls are no more. XinBing, the actual maker, has contracted to make Dynasphere balls. Same formulation as the last generation of Cyclop. This was told to me directly by XinBing.
Fools! There are 3 balls of decreasing sizes up in thrre.
Crack it open and take out the next one.
Back to ballin'.
Crack it open and take out the next one.
Back to ballin'.
those balls look beat up in the pic. like someone might have bounced them off the table at times.
you cant expect anything of quality to take unusual punishment that isnt made to be abused like a sledge hammer.
the cyclops balls are very good and play well. no pool balls are going to be bombproof. use your pool cue as a baseball bat and see if it doesnt crack.
you cant expect anything of quality to take unusual punishment that isnt made to be abused like a sledge hammer.
the cyclops balls are very good and play well. no pool balls are going to be bombproof. use your pool cue as a baseball bat and see if it doesnt crack.
Ballbushka doll?
The issue we are seeing with those balls is very unique to those balls, in my 30 years of playing I have not seen a mass of clean failures across a single brand happen this way. When the balls fall off the table they may get chips taken out, not crack down the middle in every single case. The ones that don't break are OK, the ones that break it's happening to quite a few people and in the exact way way. None of the balls in the original picture or mine have and dings out like they fell on a hard surface. A ball falling off a table is not unusual punishment, there is a lot more force going into them when they are hit with the cueball, they only get chips when falling on something like sharp concrete floor.
Here is a thread from 2015 with same exact issue in the same exact area of the ball https://forums.azbilliards.com/threads/anybody-else-had-cyclop-balls-crack.391977/
I think there was another post not long ago with same issue but I can't find it now
Last edited:
Except for the ones that roll off or split in two. I have never seen a Hyatt or an Aramith ball split like that.
But it doesn't really matter now that the brand is gone.
These are the new Dynasphere's: https://us.dynaspheres.com/products/pool/ Made by same co. but with input/oversight by distributor Loontjens Billiards. The traditional color Bronze set can be found on-line for around $100. Look very nice imo.
The split balls pictured both go number to number. My theory is that the white number plug expands as it cures. Having a ball that is cured bored and then the plug poured into it could lead to the internal pressure that eventually led to the ball splitting. If that is the case then the Dynasphere Tungsten set should be immune to that problem.
Pretty sure the white area where the # is not a plug but is molded in and goes all the way thru. The numbers are etched in and filled with phenolic resin. On cheap sets you'll see shallow plugging but not on quality balls. When reports first arose about Cyclop balls breaking most everyone pointed the finger at a bad batch of resin-mix and/or improper curing.
Last edited:
I talked to the Dynasphere people at the BCA Expo. They were fully aware of the need for close quality control.
From what i've read Loontjens/HBSC-XinBing is using very strict QC measures on these balls. This ad for balls has a pretty good bit of info on it: https://www.olhausenonline.com/coll...ts/products/dynasphere-platinum-pool-ball-set BTW, there's one set left of the Bronze's on eBay for 100bux.
I got my set of Bronze from Olhausen. Took about a week for shipping. Since I have not completed my improvements on the tracks of my Fisher table they remain in the box. It is uplifting to just open the box and gaze upon the traditional colors
.The Cyclop balls are back on the table. I had never inspected them closely. They do show considerable wear from use on the Fisher table. I did send them into the subway for at least a couple of hours ever day for quite a while. That was before I figured out the landing pad had a burr. Now I still get more minor smudge from contact with the sheet metal trough.
I’m late to knowing the whole Cyclop line of products, but what were the different sets available. A web search shows, Ares, Zeus, Hyperion, Ladon (maybe more)
Assuming the lesser expensive sets would be prone to a shorter working lifespan, but these failure examples seem to be coming from different sets.
Assuming the lesser expensive sets would be prone to a shorter working lifespan, but these failure examples seem to be coming from different sets.