Let's talk about the measles ball
- Thread starter Baxter
- Start date
Ron Swanson
Banned
And yet, in the recent 'which CB do you prefer' thread, virtually everyone said measles.
Weird, huh?
Weird, huh?
And yet, in the recent 'which CB do you prefer' thread, virtually everyone said measles.
Weird, huh?
The sheep laugh because the wolf is different, the wolf laughs because the sheep are all the same.
Slow night in mamas basement? Run along little troll, mamas calling you for bubble & squeak.
And yet, in the recent 'which CB do you prefer' thread, virtually everyone said measles.
Weird, huh?
Not I. CJ and I were about run out of town because we prefer the RC. RC was THE BALL for 30 YEARS. Then this POS comes along....the measel was actually a TRAINING BALL. Some nitwit TV producer thought, "Hey lets use this..."
Was the rage for a couple years, but now gambling and tournaments are headed back to RCs.
Ive also noticed the measles hug chalk and skid about 900% more.
I gamble, so I dont need that variable.
Over and out.
Yes I can. It's all about the resins used.
The measles ball, the red Aramith logo ball and the blue circle are all made with Aramith Super Pro Resin, the same resin used for all of the balls in the sets that each of these cue balls comes with.
The blue Aramith logo ball is made with Aramith Premium Resin, the same resin used for all of the balls in the Aramith premium set it comes with.
The new Aramith Black logo ball and all of the balls in the set it comes with are made with Aramith Super Pro Resin just like the Measles, Red Aramith logo and Blue Circle balls and all of the balls in the sets these balls come with. The difference is while the black logo ball and it's set are made with Super Pro Resin as the others mentioned in this paragraph the black logo and it's set are made with the new Aramith Duramith technology, while the same resin as the others it's process is different high tech reticulation, cross linking and curing technologies newly developed by Aramith which while again the same resin these new techniques result in a "harder ball" which doubles service life, helps it maintain a glossy look and has less friction resulting in leaving fewer burn marks on cloth.
Lastly you have the Red Circle, Black Circle and now discontinued Red Triangle and Black Triangle balls. None of these balls come in any of the sets produced by Aramith. They are made with Super Aramith resin with Carom Finish, the same as balls made by Aramith for 3 cushion. This is why they appear different in appearance, finish look, than the ball sets you may find them in while in your local hall.
ALL of these cue balls are the exact same size diameter and weight new from the factory. So all of the rumors of the Red Circle being lighter or a different size are just that, rumors. I've seen other threads were some here break out their handy micrometers & kitchen scales and offer up that their measurements and weighing and show them to be different, if the balls are new they're not different. Most of the time these theorists are measuring balls that have different service lives prior to weigh in & measurement as when all are new they are all the same.
If you play 3 cushion and pool you'll notice 3 cushion balls seem livelier when playing 3 cushion than pool balls are when you're playing pool, some don't notice it, but they are. Some that do notice attribute it to the livelier rails on a 3 cushion table and the fact that the table is heated, it's not that, it's the balls.
The reason the Red Circle seems livelier when placed with a set of pool balls is the different resin finish between it and the rest of the balls, it's livelier by design and seems even more so because it is just "different" than the material of the rest of the set. This has led to the rumors of it being lighter, it isn't. Also with it being said it's a different size, it isn't, when new. As we all know balls do wear and get smaller and lighter over time and measurements of balls that have been in service for awhile have lent to these rumors.
The Red Circle became popular amongst better players many years ago when Centennials were the primary balls used because you could put so much juice on it or draw it a mile when compared to the what seemed like dog Blue Circle cueballs that came with whatever that set as those balls are made with the same rein and most importantly finish as the rest of the balls in the set. The only pro level player I ever heard say out loud in person that he liked the Blue Circle ball back then was Keith McCready. His stroke was so vicious, even more so than the other pros that he could yank the ball anywhere. This led to many places and players removing the Blue Circle from the Centennial sets replacing them with singularly bought Red Circles and also Pros, Shortstops and Road players carrying a Red Circle with their gear so that no matter where they played or with whatever kind of ball set their cue ball control was the same.
In closing you'll hear many complain about the grab and juice of a Red Circle, generally players of a lower speed that have not developed the cueball control of the level of players mentioned above who favored it, it perplexes them. Seasoned players learn to adjust touch and speed for the given conditions far more quickly than B level and below players. With a seasoned stroke and knack of adjusting ball speed you can do things with a Red Circle that you can't do with any other cueball, slight nuances make a huge difference in how it reacts. I hope this elucidates this for you. All Aramith info courtesy of the education provided to me by my friend Nikko at Saluc over the years.
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Indeed my friend, the measles was and still is a training ball & you're exactly right about a producer deciding to start using this ball in televised match play so that the novice at home could discern what was on the ball when the pros on TV hit it, one of my objections to it in an earlier post, I spent a lot of time on my game & am not trying to broadcast what I'm putting on a ball, they can learn it on their own as I did. I also gamble and don't need that variable of skid that comes with it. Great post.
Very good post. This expounds on the "feel" I try and describe. If the RC is lighter, its ONLY about1/10th of a gram at most. Balls weigh approx 6 grams. So your talking about like 1.5% of mass. Not many would notice that.
The finish produces some things that are impossible, with other balls. Like:
A. I can pinch a bank tighter with a RC due to gear effect and possible slightly lighter weight clears the banked ball faster. Also more spin induced on the bank ball on second rail. (IE you miss the side pocket and it goes long and comes back to the other side.)
B. Carrom angles are perceptably different.
C. Of course the draw is easier, but its not just yanking it a mile. Its the CONTROL of say a 6 inch draw is MUCH more predictable.
D. I think it retains spin longer. Dont ask me to quantify that.
E. Throw is more predictable.
And its just plain better looking.
Another thing I notice is waht snooker players call "kick" This phenomena happens when the CB with extreme follow "CLIMBS' up the face of the object ball. I get that all the time on measles, but not RCs.
And yes, I carry one in each case.
The finish produces some things that are impossible, with other balls. Like:
A. I can pinch a bank tighter with a RC due to gear effect and possible slightly lighter weight clears the banked ball faster. Also more spin induced on the bank ball on second rail. (IE you miss the side pocket and it goes long and comes back to the other side.)
B. Carrom angles are perceptably different.
C. Of course the draw is easier, but its not just yanking it a mile. Its the CONTROL of say a 6 inch draw is MUCH more predictable.
D. I think it retains spin longer. Dont ask me to quantify that.
E. Throw is more predictable.
And its just plain better looking.
Another thing I notice is waht snooker players call "kick" This phenomena happens when the CB with extreme follow "CLIMBS' up the face of the object ball. I get that all the time on measles, but not RCs.
And yes, I carry one in each case.
It seems the league players in my area have a preference for the measle.
I can live without it. Have a red logo on home table. Great ball.
Like the red circle. Guess I will play with all of them....except the core ball.
One ball hasn't been mentioned as of yet.....the green logo magnetic.
I thought they played super well at Vegas. No skids that I noticed, and
It handled well.
I can live without it. Have a red logo on home table. Great ball.
Like the red circle. Guess I will play with all of them....except the core ball.
One ball hasn't been mentioned as of yet.....the green logo magnetic.
I thought they played super well at Vegas. No skids that I noticed, and
It handled well.
This ball is about 3 months old. It was just cleaned and polished on Wednesday. All the blue marks you can see is chalk that is scuffed into the surface of the ball. Those are all little scuff marks. Each one of those scuff marks increase the odds of getting a skid. My local pool hall has red circle cue balls that are over 10 years old, and don't have a single scuff mark like my 3 month old measles ball has. The measles ball that I replaced with this current one has a bunch of little half moon micro cracks in it from breaking with a phenolic tip, and I don't even break hard (19mph max). Quality on these things just seems to be in the shitter. Maybe they should start making them with their "duramith" technology.
That's nothing. I wish I took a photo of mine just a few days ago. It looked almost gray from so much dirt and chalk. Seemed to have lost it's ability to draw and follow easily as well.
It hadn't been cleaned in weeks and I couldn't get all the gunk off it no matter how hard I rubbed with a cloth. Finally I broke down and ordered some Aramith ball cleaner, and WOW! The ball cleaned up real nice, and man does it draw well now. Too well. I have to be careful because even the slightest amount of bottom on the ball ends up drawing it back out of position, where before the same hit would give me a firm stop shot.
Yeah, it got dirty after a few hours of use, but a drop of cleaner and a minute of rubbing brings back both the shine and the ball action. Interestingly, the first time I tried the cleaner I used a white cotton bar towel to clean the ball, and it quickly became discolored. Not strict blue, though, but a muddy looking greenish blue. I have spruce colored Simonis on my table, and I suspect that the ball was covered with a combination of chalk, dirt, and Simonis green.
At an rate, the surface seems to hold a lot of this gunk, even after hand-rubbing with a clean cloth and no cleaner. I'm not sure yet that this problem is exclusive to the measles ball since my blue circle gets a lot of gunk on it as well. My blue circle is a real old one that came with my set of Centennials that came in the blue box, so it's not anything to do with a change in resin formulation, at least with the blue circle. These Centennials are the same ball set that Sigel, Hall, Strickland, and Archer used to dominate the pool world for so many years. If they had a problem with them we surely would have heard about it by now.
So, I just went down and used the Aramith cleaner on my blue circle CB.
The pic on the left is the ball after I rubbed just a portion of the ball. You can see the circle of freshly cleaned surface just above the blue circle, contrasting with the rest of the disgustingly dirty ball (haven't used it in over a year because it was so dirty and hard to clean).
The pic on the right is after I cleaned the whole ball. You can see the green residue I was talking about on the cloth to the left of the ball (the other weird colors are shadows that my phone camera got the wrong color balance, the towel itself was freshly cleaned).
I waited a while and then hit several balls using the blue circle, and I noticed that the chalk marks appeared with every shot. When I looked at each one I saw that there seemed to be a big scuff mark under the chalk, and the chalk didn't want to rub off very easily. Mind you, this is on an old tried-and true Centennial blue circle CB, not any suspected new resin formulation like might be used in the newer measles balls.
So, I decided to try the Novus 3-part plastic polishing system (no connection to the TOI 3-part ball pocketing system) and got the CB looking great again. Again, I got the same chalk marks with every hit, BUT... the chalk easily wiped away with a mere swipe of a dry clean cloth. And no scuffs underneath to speak of.
Could it be the Aramith cleaner itself, leaving some sort of thin coating on the ball that looks clean and shiny but holds onto the chalk? The bottle does say it is a new formula (don't know how long ago that change occurred), and I have never used anything on my pool balls except warm water with maybe a couple drops of ammonia added to get the hand grime off, so I am unfamiliar with these products. I noticed that the Aramith cleaner has a hint of citrus smell to it, so it must contain some limonene as a solvent. By contrast, the Novus cleaner has a very faint ammonia smell to it, kinda like window cleaner only weaker smelling.
Maybe if I have time later I'll make a short video of all this to show everybody what I mean. I'd like to show how easily the chalk comes off the ball with the Novus compared to the Aramith cleaner. In the meantime I'm curious about others' thoughts here. I'm perplexed. I know I'm crazy, but I don't think I'm crazy about this particular subject.
The pic on the left is the ball after I rubbed just a portion of the ball. You can see the circle of freshly cleaned surface just above the blue circle, contrasting with the rest of the disgustingly dirty ball (haven't used it in over a year because it was so dirty and hard to clean).
The pic on the right is after I cleaned the whole ball. You can see the green residue I was talking about on the cloth to the left of the ball (the other weird colors are shadows that my phone camera got the wrong color balance, the towel itself was freshly cleaned).
I waited a while and then hit several balls using the blue circle, and I noticed that the chalk marks appeared with every shot. When I looked at each one I saw that there seemed to be a big scuff mark under the chalk, and the chalk didn't want to rub off very easily. Mind you, this is on an old tried-and true Centennial blue circle CB, not any suspected new resin formulation like might be used in the newer measles balls.
So, I decided to try the Novus 3-part plastic polishing system (no connection to the TOI 3-part ball pocketing system) and got the CB looking great again. Again, I got the same chalk marks with every hit, BUT... the chalk easily wiped away with a mere swipe of a dry clean cloth. And no scuffs underneath to speak of.
Could it be the Aramith cleaner itself, leaving some sort of thin coating on the ball that looks clean and shiny but holds onto the chalk? The bottle does say it is a new formula (don't know how long ago that change occurred), and I have never used anything on my pool balls except warm water with maybe a couple drops of ammonia added to get the hand grime off, so I am unfamiliar with these products. I noticed that the Aramith cleaner has a hint of citrus smell to it, so it must contain some limonene as a solvent. By contrast, the Novus cleaner has a very faint ammonia smell to it, kinda like window cleaner only weaker smelling.
Maybe if I have time later I'll make a short video of all this to show everybody what I mean. I'd like to show how easily the chalk comes off the ball with the Novus compared to the Aramith cleaner. In the meantime I'm curious about others' thoughts here. I'm perplexed. I know I'm crazy, but I don't think I'm crazy about this particular subject.
This is one of the those $5 eBay measles balls after 6 months of breaking. I used a sharpie and colored the ball black, cleaned it with acetone, and finished the ball in the polisher.
Corey
Man, that's pretty clever! Very revealing. Looks like what Baxter was describing happened to his ball. If wonder if his would look like that after the same treatment.
Thank you. Very interesting stuff. This explains a lot. I especially noticed the difference in draw - which does seems like the ball plays "light" compared to the original cue balls.
You just described a specialty ball that is easier to draw than normal.
Plus, it is lighter by a few grams. That has been shown in countless threads here. Many guys have done comparable weighing of brand new balls fresh out of boxes with the same scale.
And that is garbage.
It's 2015, we all know what you're putting on the ball. It's not the same fishfarm it was 40 years ago where guys who didn't know ow what end of the stick to use were gambling and you had secrets to hide concerning your English.
You're right in that it is a specialty ball as it doesn't come in any set Aramith makes.
You're right in that there are a lot of threads where individuals have stated results of their kitchen table tests & in those same threads there are individuals that have done the same tests finding no difference. There are plenty of counterfeit Red Circles just as there are Fugazi measles balls leading to the problems mentioned with them in this thread, I would contribute light measuring balls to that factor. Genuine Aramith Red Circles weigh the same per Aramith. The info I posted is not my opinion, it's info I received from a long time friend that works at Saluc so I'll tend to go with that.
It was the preferred ball for many years until a TV producer thought using a training ball was a good idea for those watching at home so they could discern what was put on the ball, in fact that's the entire reasoning behind the measles ball, a training ball designed so you can see the English put on the ball & its effect. So since it is 2015 and everybody knows everything we should be able to stop playing with a training ball and bring back the Red Circle for match play.
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Red Circle
I have two Aramith Red Circles... I play One Pocket about 60% of the time, and most of the players I know don't like the measles ball at all. Get the rack of balls, nice Centennial set, but there's the measles cue ball. Guy I'm playing says "Did you bring your Red Circle?" Yup, out it comes... proper. Just sends the object ball better, more gear transfer... more predictable. With the measles, haven't you hit a shot and the CB just doesn't do what you'd expect?
And my RC's still look perfect, no dings, shatters, crescents, etc., and you don't see chalk marks on 'em. I just think the quality has gone way down regarding the measles ball... and yes, there's cheap knockoffs off those AND RC's. And yes, they're the same size and weight as a Centennial object ball... not smaller or lighter.. at least the ones I have.
My 2.2 cents
I have two Aramith Red Circles... I play One Pocket about 60% of the time, and most of the players I know don't like the measles ball at all. Get the rack of balls, nice Centennial set, but there's the measles cue ball. Guy I'm playing says "Did you bring your Red Circle?" Yup, out it comes... proper. Just sends the object ball better, more gear transfer... more predictable. With the measles, haven't you hit a shot and the CB just doesn't do what you'd expect?
And my RC's still look perfect, no dings, shatters, crescents, etc., and you don't see chalk marks on 'em. I just think the quality has gone way down regarding the measles ball... and yes, there's cheap knockoffs off those AND RC's. And yes, they're the same size and weight as a Centennial object ball... not smaller or lighter.. at least the ones I have.
My 2.2 cents
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I have a measles ball from close to 15 years ago, I remember taking it out the Aramith package. This cue ball marks up with chalk terribly. Every couple of racks the ball needs to be wiped clean, chalk used is Master caulk or and older piece of Triangle. Something else that I found, I weighed a number of cue balls that I have, the measle ball had the most weight. When trying to get the cue ball around the table, the measle ball is by far the easiest.
measle ball 5.90 oz
169 g
black circle 5.65 oz
161 g
red circle 5.6 oz
159 g
red triangle 5.85oz
166 g
red circle (new) 5.85 oz
166 g
measle ball 5.90 oz
169 g
black circle 5.65 oz
161 g
red circle 5.6 oz
159 g
red triangle 5.85oz
166 g
red circle (new) 5.85 oz
166 g
Spot on... the measles ball almost rolls like a heavier 3 cushion cue ball, depending on the ball.. my RC's both measure 168g, identical to my Centennial set.
I carry one around in my case and have broken it out a few times over the past year to use while I'm practicing before league. The guys that have talked about it in front of me all call it a practice ball. Nobody wants to use it. I think they'd rather use the heavy ball. Weird. Just down the road in the next biggest town, everybody knows what it is.