My post was very much tongue in cheek! Misuse or overuse of a Willard tool eats tips. Shape your tip when new if it doesn't come preshaped. If it does come preshaped, play with whatever crown it has for a half dozen sessions then check the crown and you can decide if you want to change it or not. Then the way you play will change the crown a little. This is a good thing. Those that use extreme side often will have a higher crown than those that don't so the tip naturally shapes to each person's style of play. Trying to keep a perfect nickel or dime crown is not necessary and only eats tips, particularly layered tips.
The only real use I have for the Willard tools is using that little cut out on the side to show people what crown they have now before replacing a tip. Often it is closer to a quarter radius which I don't have a template for but I can show where the daylight is when I let the player look at the template themselves.
What I taught my customers was to wipe off the chalk after play then before play the next time and maybe once or twice a session use a BRAD tool or similar and firm pressure to roll dents in the playing surface of the tip not letting it slide or cut the tip. Doing this instead of cutting up tips all of the time or poking lots of tiny holes in them extends life ten-fold for some people! I use tips until I get tired of them, very rarely wearing one out. They last a year or three in heavy play, usually as long as I use the shaft. The Sniper tip on my carbon fiber shaft looks like new after months of heavy play and my Elkmasters last for years dudded or not.
Hu
