My experience with ultraskin cue tips

Enigmaticul

Enigmaticul

Banned
Hi my name is andrei and i am very new to the forum. I am a student at Indiana university and have been playing pool all my life. Current i am 25. Romanian by birth American by choice. I have start playing pool in Romania because it is a very popular sport back home. I play for the IU pool team at the collegiate level and study to become a physical therapist.

I love the game and i am very sad that it is dieing but the few of us left are very passionate and cannot have enough grateful words for all the cue smiths from jim buss (thanks for the amazing wrap jim) to bob owen and mister Jacoby. I have been bit by the cut building bug and i am infected. i am on a very strict budget so i purchased a beginner taig lathe that with parts i adapted to do ferules and tips plus cleaning.

I purchased the tips from mister Tom last weekend and they arrived very fast. The price was very good but i was a little skeptical since i am a kamui diehard (tips plus chalk). But the reviews convinced me and i gave a try.

Setup
Mcdermott navigator 2 with a i3 shaft European taper 11.75 mm

I installed the tip after ripping out a 20% used kamui black medium and installed the ultras medium. I used locktite gel control (the one that gives a little flex). The tip machined wonderful and it burnished very nice.

I am a medical student so i have access to some nice microscopes and for the past couple of months i have been examining tips under the microscope to see the uniformity of the layers and the consistency of the leather. i looked at everything from karomi to elkmaster and g10. I realized that cheep tips under 3$ tend to have uneven layers under the microscope that cannot be seen with the naked eye. also the leather on the cheep cues looks very course and quite impure (glue particles, sand and other stuff). now high end tips like kamui look very uniform with layers that are well glued, matte in finish and even.

So i analyzed toms tips to and they looked very good. The layers looked very uniform the glue is well cured and the consistency of the leather is on par with kamui.

So i shot with the cue tonight just before writhing this review.


The tip hits very well for a medium. Compared to the kamui medium i had before i feel that it hits a little harder/stiffer. The sound the tips makes is a a small ting sound (sound familiar with the kamui). The spin is very good (good spin with the blue diamond across all power outputs, more spin at low speeds with the kamui chalk same at higher power inputs).

The bottom line

Tom managed to create a worthy kamui contender for a fraction of the price. I have to say taking into consideration price, feel and finish i would rate this tip as outstanding and worth a try.

Now i am still in the initial stages of testing this tip. i am still very curious how long it will last, if it is going to mushroom and glaze. play pool close to 3 hours a day between classes so i will give this tip a run for its money.

i will install a soft tip on my jacoby cue and post a review soon.

TOM thanks for being a stand up guy and delivering such a phenomenal tip.

And no i am not kissing ass or being sponsored. Its just my personal 3 cents.
 
Enigmaticul, thanks for a great review, and I hope to see more posts from you. Your approach is analytical and precise, which I do appreciate. Tom has develpoed and offered a great tip at a great price. Being a total Kamuii believer and user for the past few years, I understand your remarks and findings. The really only thing I have found of great difference between a high priced Kamuii, and Tom's Ultraskin affordable priced tips are that when you cut an ultraskin down on the lathe...you can see the glue marking's between the layers of leather, as opposed to the Kamuii. I dont know if Kamuii uses black coloured glue or not, but you can see the layers on the Ultraskin, and not on the Kamuii. That's about the only difference, as far as I have found. Hope to see more reviews from you. I am sure you will find, as time goes on, that your reports of the Ultraskin tips are very favorable.
 
intresting

yea i have never considered that kamui might use dark glue. also after playing with the medium tip for about 4 hours i have realized that the sides are not burnished as nice as a kamui. i have used a piece of leather and so good old spit but still not the glass look i am looking for. i am afraid the burnish to much because heat is the enemy in this case as i learned from you tube vids.

in order to continue to analyze ultra skin tips i would have to use the same shaft because no matter what people say a cue does change the way a tip feels. so i have to compare apples to apples. i just would feel really bad to rip a perfectly good tip and to install another one but i might just do that in the name of science.

now if tom would like to donate a hh,h,and soft that would be more then appreciated.

i just hate being poor (relative term i understand that there i people way worst then me), college has sucked every penny out of me and i really hope it pays out. i am tired of ramen noodles.

i will think about it and i might just do change it again to make another review.
 
pics of the tip installed

image1.jpeg


image.jpeg
 
I have put on a pretty good amount of ultras.
They are a quality tip at a great price.
They install well, shape well,
I have yet to have a layer delaminate on me...
Only had one customer not like the tip, but he still hasn't come back for a different tip ;)
 
tip

cuejo said:
I have put on a pretty good amount of ultras.
They are a quality tip at a great price.
They install well, shape well,
I have yet to have a layer delaminate on me...
Only had one customer not like the tip, but he still hasn't come back for a different tip ;)
Click to expand...

No knock on Tom's tips but I did have one delaminate on me. Luckily it was a med I put on my personal cue and not a customers. No complaints from any I have put in the field. Good tip with a great price. Keep up the good work Tom.
 
I mean just by law of chance it is bound to have some bad ones. I had plentiful of morri with air bubbles inside as we'll as some kamuis. The more you mess with tips the higher the chance of finding some bad ones. But as long as the majority is quality that is fine
 
Enigmaticul said:
yea i have never considered that kamui might use dark glue. also after playing with the medium tip for about 4 hours i have realized that the sides are not burnished as nice as a kamui. i have used a piece of leather and so good old spit but still not the glass look i am looking for. i am afraid the burnish to much because heat is the enemy in this case as i learned from you tube vids.

in order to continue to analyze ultra skin tips i would have to use the same shaft because no matter what people say a cue does change the way a tip feels. so i have to compare apples to apples. i just would feel really bad to rip a perfectly good tip and to install another one but i might just do that in the name of science.

now if tom would like to donate a hh,h,and soft that would be more then appreciated.

i just hate being poor (relative term i understand that there i people way worst then me), college has sucked every penny out of me and i really hope it pays out. i am tired of ramen noodles.

i will think about it and i might just do change it again to make another review.
Click to expand...

I accept the challange. If you can't take being put under a microscope you shouldn't let anyone see you. On the burnishing, my leather is treated and will not maitain a high gloss burnish.

Send me mailing info. On the soft you might see a little mushrooming one time.

I will be as interested as anyone on results.

Thanks
 
whammo57 said:
I would not install it so thick. I cut them down and make them a little thinner. I leave about 4 to 5 layers and the dome. I think it just gives a better feel.

I don't usually scuff this tip so they last a long time.

Kim
Click to expand...

I agree with you Kim, that tip is pretty thick.
 
Andrei super review. Merci mult si sper sa-ti placa pastilele astea. Sunt de calitate si omu' asta chiar le face cu daruire. Eu folosesc ultraskin de vreo 5 luni si sunt impecabile. Am folosit numai piele inainte de ele si Tom m-a convins ca merita sa trec la astea cu layere. Am kamui pe un shaft si la cum lovesc eu ultraskinul e peste...opinia mea.

Anyway, Tom makes the best custom tips on the market right now. He probably knows this already but his tips are comparable with any factory layered tips, and better than most of them.
I am using Ultraskin M for like 5-6 month, 15h per week, on my predator shafts, no mushroom or glaze, very nice sound.

Thanks for the review Andrei, is nice to see that Ultraskin community expands every day.

There are a lot of overpriced tips out there, but Tom's Ultraskin tips are way underpriced for the quality they offer. IMO

Thanks
Chris



Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
 
Total deacord. Poate daca vreodata esti prin indianapolis vorbin si dam o bila undeva. adica la 15h pe saptamana trabuie sa vad ce poti :grin:.
 
I've got to agree...

These tips are really great tips, they install very cleanly, trim up nicely, and hit the balls really good.

I've installed over 20 of them in my local area, and I've only had 2 customers that have mentioned that they are hitting a little harder than they preferred... So, for them, I've offered to replace their tip at a very discounted price...but they have both decided for me to just cut the tip down a bit further...and they now both said that the are liking the feel that they are getting now.

I think they are the best layered tip out there...and like you, I've only got one med on one of my shafts...as I just hate to cut off a perfectly good hitting tip from a cue...just to test out the others that tom has provided me.

I need to test a soft tip, to see if it hits a bit hard like the medium's...do...

Has anyone compared the two? a Soft vs. Medium ???


thanks,
jwe
 
JW, when I try new tips, I generally will start with a soft myself and work up.

I put on a med on my player and after a couple of break in nights, I love it.

From the people that have softs on theirs, no complaints and only compliments.

I ordered extra softs because it is looking like they are going to be a very popular tip, whereas I generally will keep just a few softs on hand for the few that do prefer them.
 
I've been selling them a hardness level soften than rated...
Not one unhappy customer yet!!
 
When I first started using them I left them too thick. I had 2 guys with the soft tips say they mushroomed. I honestly didn't think so when I looked at them and I couldn't feel it. I cut them down to 4 layers and re burnished them and they were happy.

I do all of them to 4 layers and a dome now.

Kim
 
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