Multi Layered tips vs single layer tips
- Thread starter Slh
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Despite popular opinion to the contrary, tip construction has little to do with how much possible spin can be applied to the cueball. Tip diameter, shape, proper chalk application, and of course stroke have much more to do with spin than tip construction.
Hear hear!
Much agreed....Single layered vs Multi-layered is a matter of preference.
I have a question for those who say tip placement and stroke impart the spin. I have a cue with an ultraskin medium, and another cue with an unknown tip. My table has extremely slow felt. Under no circumstances can I draw a ball with the Ultraskin, but with the other cue, I can draw back about 2 to 3 diamonds. It is a soft or supersoft tip, would that make that much difference?
My personal experience is that tip hardness accounts for very little. Maybe something...I don't know. It's your stroke. You're not hitting the cueball where you think you are.
Do this: take a striped ball and set it up so the stripe is horizontal. This is your cueball. Setup a shot where another ball is about a diamond away. DON'T WORRY ABOUT MAKING THE BALL...it's irrelevant.
Take your ultraskin cue and aim, with a nice level stroke, right for the lower edge of the stripe. Make sure you're actually making contact there. For the tip to contact at that point, the center of the cue actually has to be LOWER because of the radius...check from the side if you have to. Just do your best.
Take a nice, soft, level stroke. Don't kill it. Don't yank the cue back. Don't try to make the object ball...don't even look at it. Concentrate on absolutely nothing except taking that nice level stroke, and glue your eyes on the spot on the "cue ball" that you're trying to hit..that's your sole focus.
Follow through...nothing bad will happen if the cue ball draws into the tip. Nothing bad will happen if you miscue. Get all those thoughts out of your mind.
I've yet to meet someone that can't get a great draw doing this, even people who have been trying to draw their whole lives and can't. Within 2 or 3 tries, the ball comes zipping back. I promise it will come zipping back with your ultraskin too. Then it will just be a matter of maybe taking a lesson or two so a pro can see what's going on with your stroke. It can be almost impossible to diagnose it yourself because you have so many other things going on when you're trying to shoot.
And maybe once you get some confidence that the Ultraskin works just fine, the draw shot may just immediately fix itself. I think most amateurs like us naturally get cold feet and unconsciously make center ball hits at the last second when our confidence is shot. I know I do, anyhow...after a few bad shots, nothing seems to work anymore and my game goes in the toilet the rest of the night. You need to build up your confidence with that tip!
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Are the tips the same diameter and shape? A smaller diameter and/or smaller radius will cause you to hit the cueball in different places even though from your eye level it looks the same.
As long as chalk is well applied to both tips, then it's almost certainly a difference in stroke or tip placement on the CB, and not due to tip construction.
Thanks for the responses. Let me say that at the pool room I play at, I can draw the ball the length of the table and back out about 4 diamonds, but my home table is in my garage, and old slow felt, I simply cannot draw the ball back with any cue EXCEPT the one with the unknown tip, which seems to be softer than any other tip I have. I wish I knew what kind of tip it is!
You really weren't able to get it to draw doing it like I suggested? I'm not doubting you. It's just that I've never seen that fail regardless of skill level or equipment. Even really crappy tables/felt with practically flat tips.