On Target Tips: low deflection and hybrid tips.

This idea have already been done before with Samsara Break Tip I think. They have the center cored on the phenolic with leather hide in the center as it's illegal to break in some league with phenolic tip. I've created a few myself using phenolic ferrule rod and cutting my Molavia as insert on the phenolic and it actually breaks very good. You can play with it as well but they one I've made was only good for breaking on my CM360 shafts.

It's like having a ferrule and tip combo in one...so it theory the end mass is reduced so there less deflection naturally. I personally think deflection quality is equivalent to the the quality of the shaft wood...other factor plays a part but the biggest in the quality of the wood grain and density..etc. What's difference here would be the material that will be used.

BR,
Duc.
 
This idea have already been done before with Samsara Break Tip I think. They have the center cored on the phenolic with leather hide in the center as it's illegal to break in some league with phenolic tip. I've created a few myself using phenolic ferrule rod and cutting my Molavia as insert on the phenolic and it actually breaks very good. You can play with it as well but they one I've made was only good for breaking on my CM360 shafts.

It's like having a ferrule and tip combo in one...so it theory the end mass is reduced so there less deflection naturally. I personally think deflection quality is equivalent to the the quality of the shaft wood...other factor plays a part but the biggest in the quality of the wood grain and density..etc. What's difference here would be the material that will be used.

BR,
Duc.

Does the phenolic hold chalk like a soft leather tip? Chalk up every shot?
 
Just because something is soft does not make it porous. I am not sure either what is meant by specific gravity, the actual term used.

And after reading this I am still not sure what this has to do with cue tips

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_gravity

The idea of a tip being comprised of two different densities across the diameter is interesting though. I too have often watched the video of tips compressing, thinking that it seems like an awful lot of movement happening, and wondered if the tip could not be reengineered not to do that and whether that would be a good thing or not.

I have shown people that you can play with a phenolic tip. That would obviously be the extreme end where the tip compresses very little if at all. So between that and ultra mushy what's the best?

Maybe Jaden's experiment will be as revolutionary as he thinks it will be.

The reference to specific gravity was in relation to end mass. The typical belief has been that to substantially reduce squirt you have to reduce endmass. In this case the materials that I have used have actually increased end mass but has reduced effective end mass.

Phenolic tips do not deform sideways, but because they don't deform at all, it increases effective end mass by forcing the shaft to deform more as a result on contact.

The shaft only travels towards the side of the ball that you are applying side spin on AFTER contact ceases. The cueball does not PUSH it off to that side, It is actually bending toward the center mass of the cueball during contact and it is the release of the stresses built up during that contact that causes it to deflect in the opposite direction when contact ceases.

My tips allow the tip to compress and absorb some of those stresses so that the shaft isn't forced to compress more, but the encapsulation prevents sideways deformation of the tip so the cueball can still travel straighter.

I've been away from my shop for work and haven't been able to progress as quickly as I had hoped, but I am still on track to launch within a month, so I haven't deviated too far from the original estimated one to two months.

I have determined that the squirt reduction is contingent upon remaining within the leather on contact, so it requires players to stay within one to one and a half tips of center.

For those of you wanting to try it out, it won't be long now.

Jaden
 
Dave, can you tell me if this is right? I'm trying to come up with an "explain it like I'm 5 version".
But I may not have a handle on it.

------

Say some ball hits the cue ball on the cue ball's left side.
That ball will deflect off to the left afterwards. The cue ball will go somewhere to the right.

When a cue's tip hits the left side of whitey, it's not really different.
The tip wants to go left. The object ball wants to go right.

But because the cue tip is firmly attached to this long, thin stick, the tip can't really go anywhere.
It can go a little to the left because the stick is flexible.
The stick bends a little to the left, then it quickly straightens back out.
The cue ball isn't attached to anything though, so it will go to the right. That is to say, it will deflect.

So, how much will it deflect?

Well, at the moment the tip hits the ball, there's a sort of shockwave that happens incredibly fast.
The shockwave travels backwards towards the butt of the cue, then rebounds back towards the tip.
Then the force of this shockwave pushes the ball away from the tip.

The stiffer a stick is, the longer this shockwave will travel before it rebounds.
A longer shockwave will push the cue ball away with more force than a short shockwave.
The harder the push, the more 'sideways' the cue ball will go. Meaning it will deflect more.

So you want to shorten this shockwave by making the shaft less stiff, more flexible.
If it's too flexible, like an actual wet noodle, it's too much work to push the cue ball around the table.
So it needs to be stiff enough to play pool, but flexible enough to reduce the length of that shockwave.

One way to do that is to make it thinner and lighter. Another way is to hollow out the shaft.
From experiments, the last 8ish inches of the shaft are what's important. Changing anything past that
won't really help much. So that's why you can't really have a low-deflection butt.

------

So with all that said (if it's correct)... can the tip have much "impact" (haha!) on deflection?
You can't play with the lightness of the tip much, it barely weighs anything anyway.
But can you reduce deflection by playing with the tip's flexibility?
Would a super soft mushy tip "give" more, allowing for less deflection?
If so, how far can you go before the tip is so mushy it's not useful to move the cue ball anymore?
Check out the following article: "Squirt - Part I: introduction" (BD, August, 2007). It explains and illustrates what causes squirt in a very easy-to-understand way, with drawings and images from high-speed photography.

The main effect is: while the cue tip is in contact with the CB during an off-center hit, the CB starts to turn. This pushes the cue tip sideways and the cue tip pushes back. The amount of push depends on the effective mass ("endmass") being deflected in the cue. The "effective mass" depends on how far the tip deflection is "felt" down the length of the shaft as a sideways "wave" travels down the shaft toward the butt. Because the tip is in contact with the CB for such a short a time, the wave does not travel very far (only about 5-10 inches). The distance it travels varies with shaft stiffness some. It travels faster (and longer) in a stiffer shaft involving more "effective mass" in the sideways deflection, which causes more squirt (CB deflection).

I hope that helps,
Dave
 
Not sure what you're asking. You can insert any tip hardness or any tips you want so it will chalk like any other with exception to the other thin diameter of phenolic. With my CM360 Tips...you don't have to chalk very often. Suck, the guy who made them for me is out of commission.

BR,
Duc.
Does the phenolic hold chalk like a soft leather tip? Chalk up every shot?
 
I like the idea. I'm on board for trying it out as well.. If you'd like, I'll make you a deal; I can send you a new Predator 314-2 Shaft to try it out on and do your testing with, and when your done send it back with your new tip still on it...?

Rain-Man
 
Me afraid you gotta your facts mixed up.

You do know that a patent costs about $25k to acquire and then maintain over their life, correct? That is just in USPTO fees, that does not count if you hire an outside firm to help you. If you think you can make that up, and much more in your sales, by all means, go for a patent. If not, its a waste of money, imo.

A patent can range in price from $65 to multiple thousands, but actually obtaining a patent to protect and start selling for a single person entity or micro entity is just $65...

That gives you a provisional patent with the rights to sell your invention for one year. Within that year you have to file for the standard utility patent.

It is patent attorney fees that can cause patents to be exceedingly expensive.

Jaden
 
A patent can range in price from $65 to multiple thousands, but actually obtaining a patent to protect and start selling for a single person entity or micro entity is just $65...

That gives you a provisional patent with the rights to sell your invention for one year. Within that year you have to file for the standard utility patent.

It is patent attorney fees that can cause patents to be exceedingly expensive.

Jaden

I'm quite certain. I have a half dozen issued patents in my name myself. What I didn't know was that there is a discount for small businesses. My patents were all paid for by the corporation I work for, so we paid full price, and I was not aware of the discount.

The 25k full price is legit. That is not lawyer fees, that is patent office fees. Go to their website and you will see a schedule of prices. Or do a google search for how much patent's cost. Now, I did say this was "over the life of the patent". Many patents just die, without people paying the maintenance fees. (In fact, some of the Predator 314 patents did not have the maintenance fee paid). The maintenance fees alone (at full corporation price) are over 10K.

If you go through with it, that is only a decision you can make. And, you are quite correct, filing a provisional application costs almost nothing, and gives you priority if the product is successful and you wish to then spend the big bucks at that point to file the utility application.

Anyway, enough about the patents. I'd like to hear what testing method you are using to determine that these tips are indeed "low deflection".
 
Check out the following article: "Squirt - Part I: introduction" (BD, August, 2007). It explains and illustrates what causes squirt in a very easy-to-understand way, with drawings and images from high-speed photography.

The main effect is: while the cue tip is in contact with the CB during an off-center hit, the CB starts to turn. This pushes the cue tip sideways and the cue tip pushes back. The amount of push depends on the effective mass ("endmass") being deflected in the cue. The "effective mass" depends on how far the tip deflection is "felt" down the length of the shaft as a sideways "wave" travels down the shaft toward the butt. Because the tip is in contact with the CB for such a short a time, the wave does not travel very far (only about 5-10 inches). The distance it travels varies with shaft stiffness some. It travels faster (and longer) in a stiffer shaft involving more "effective mass" in the sideways deflection, which causes more squirt (CB deflection).

I hope that helps,
Dave

Dave, just a thought on what you stated....it might have merit, might be "stupid". I don't know. What if there was a small section of rubber or some shock absorbing material right below the ferrule....would that make it have less squirt?
 
Dave, just a thought on what you stated....it might have merit, might be "stupid". I don't know. What if there was a small section of rubber or some shock absorbing material right below the ferrule....would that make it have less squirt?

You could strike the CB with a rubber band or wet noodle and you would get zero deflection. Unfortunately, the CB wouldn't move either. An exaggeration to be sure, however, I think that is an analogy of how a rubber cushion would work. The negative affects would outweigh the gains in decreasing deflection. The rubber cushion would also act as a dash pot/dampener, in effect, decreasing feel to an undesirable level.
 
Okay. This is good news. Although it might be hard but if you could offer a sampler pack pricing like Chris(The Renfro), that would be great! :D

The reference to specific gravity was in relation to end mass. The typical belief has been that to substantially reduce squirt you have to reduce endmass. In this case the materials that I have used have actually increased end mass but has reduced effective end mass.

Phenolic tips do not deform sideways, but because they don't deform at all, it increases effective end mass by forcing the shaft to deform more as a result on contact.

The shaft only travels towards the side of the ball that you are applying side spin on AFTER contact ceases. The cueball does not PUSH it off to that side, It is actually bending toward the center mass of the cueball during contact and it is the release of the stresses built up during that contact that causes it to deflect in the opposite direction when contact ceases.

My tips allow the tip to compress and absorb some of those stresses so that the shaft isn't forced to compress more, but the encapsulation prevents sideways deformation of the tip so the cueball can still travel straighter.

I've been away from my shop for work and haven't been able to progress as quickly as I had hoped, but I am still on track to launch within a month, so I haven't deviated too far from the original estimated one to two months.

I have determined that the squirt reduction is contingent upon remaining within the leather on contact, so it requires players to stay within one to one and a half tips of center.

For those of you wanting to try it out, it won't be long now.

Jaden
 
You could strike the CB with a rubber band or wet noodle and you would get zero deflection. Unfortunately, the CB wouldn't move either. An exaggeration to be sure, however, I think that is an analogy of how a rubber cushion would work. The negative affects would outweigh the gains in decreasing deflection. The rubber cushion would also act as a dash pot/dampener, in effect, decreasing feel to an undesirable level.

I know it would be impractical in use, but was wondering if it would actually reduce squirt.
 
I don't think miscues are caused by a lack of chalk. I think they are caused, usually, by a combination of too much tip offset to the periphery of the ball and a fault in the stroke which causes the tip to slide across the CB face in a prolonged manner producing an actual friction burn mark on the tip. Even a well-chalked tip will "burn" when this happens. It's difficult to realize we're doing this because the reason it happens in the first place is that we aren't concentrating adequately on the stroke. Therefore, we don't observe the cause correctly.

I would say for the most part you are correct that it is the offset and a stroke flaw that are usually misscue culprits but the offset issue can be reduced by using a chalk with more bite or engineering bite into the tip.... In some instances the chalk or lack thereof just won't give the tip enough grip to carry the cueball along the stroke path.... A hard center and soft sides will definitely mean that friction will be at a premium but it can be acquired......

What I am interested in is what the tip will feel like with the softer sides... The feel from a tip has a whole lot to do with the hardened shoulder from burnishing at least for shots with a tip offset... I had a tip installer who used to burnish and then shape and you would have not believed the difference in feel on a tip vs shaping and then burnishing......

Chris
 
Dave, just a thought on what you stated....it might have merit, might be "stupid". I don't know. What if there was a small section of rubber or some shock absorbing material right below the ferrule....would that make it have less squirt?
Honestly, I don't know what effect this would have on squirt; although, I do know that the cue would probably not be very useful in actual play.

It is possible the rubber could actually in crease the amount of squirt because it could cause the tip contact time on the CB to be longer, which would increase squirt. For example, if you were to use a rubber tip, where the contact time would be much longer than with a leather tip, the amount of squirt would be ridiculous (see the rubber-super-ball-tip report and my cue-tip hardness resource page for more info).

Catch you later,
Dave
 
Good news for those who are interested in my product...

After doing some additional testing, I have tweaked the design. The results from the testing that led to the design tweak have also allowed me to offer an additional product.

It will be an under tip that will allow people to get the benefits of low deflection/squirt (Dave we really need to make a concerted effort to change the term to low squirt and eliminate the term low deflection) without giving up the tip they currently use.

This won't be possible with my hybrid tip, but the under tip will allow you to use any normal tip while still getting the low squirt properties from my design.

The under tip would be glued on first like a normal tip and then another tip would be glued onto the under tip as though it was the end of the ferule. The tip should be turned fairly low, but most people like to do that anyways so that shouldn't be an issue.

I will also still provide full tip units for ease of use/install.

Jaden

P.S. Dave, a tip of the new design will be coming to you directly for testing. I would've sent a tip to you earlier but wanted to make sure I had production level quality before I did.
 
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The under tip would be glued on first like a normal tip and then another tip would be glued onto the under tip as though it was the end of the ferule.

Why not combine the two instead of having a 2 part install process?
 
They are combined...

Why not combine the two instead of having a 2 part install process?

I will be offering both. I will offer a single item that is both combined and a single item for those that wish to stay with their existing tip...

It's just an additional item to cater to those who like their current tip and don't want to switch.

The under tip won't wear out as quickly and therefore won't have to be replaced is often. That is the main reason that I will offer the second option.

Jaden
 
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I will be offering both. I will offer a single item that is both combined and a single item for those that wish to stay with their existing tip...

It's just an additional item to cater to those who like their current tip and don't want to switch.

The under tip won't wear out as quickly and therefore won't have to be replaced is often. That is the main reason that I will offer the second option.

Jaden

What exactly would cause the under tip to "wear out"?
 
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