Chris Byrne said:
I have royal oak and rocket tips. The royal oaks are pretty thin right out of the box but they play ok. The rocket tips are similar to elkmasters but look cheaper made, they are not stamped as nicely.
Most of the tips I install here on local players cues are lepros. Some triangles and some layered flavor of the month tips. I still install them the same way as always but over the last year or so I have seen a marked change in the way they machine and how well the sides hold up after playing a while. The sides are beaking down very quickly and alot of them have been machining like a sponge. There is also a noticable diffrence in color. The newer ones are a lighter shade of brown than the ones I have from before. I noticed that right as soon as I opened the boxes.
I am pretty familiar with the whole tweeten lineup as well as most tips that have been around for a while. I was hoping someone knows of a tip company somewhere that had good quality but arent around the pool scene here in the USA. I Have a call into tweeten to see if there is something that can be done or made. I really like a good playing lepro when I can get one. Plus I put some on a few shafts for my expo cues for people to test drive as most people know how they play. Even if they use other tips nearly everyone has hit with lepros before so they can get a feel for how the cues play. I will do some searching tonight to see if I can turn up something. Chris.
I've been having the same problem for a couple of years, and You are right they keep getting worse. I install more Lepro then anything else, so It's really getting old with Me too. I'm tired of having to pull tricks off to try to harden them up some, when that works that is, but still that's only good for house cues, and even worse are all of them that I have no choice, but to toss because I can't even use them for that anymore when they are so bad that they stretch out like an accordion.
I've tried to combat It, by stocking them in several sizes (12mm,13mm,13.5mm,14mm,etc) some sizes I keep 2 boxes on hand, and still have whole boxes that are useless. Other boxes It's like trying to find gold, but at least I get some usable tips from them. Even with those, best case scenario I Still end up tossing more then I use though. Trying to find one that's usable on a customer cue is down right near impossible anymore, because the quality just keeps getting worse every time I reload on boxes of them.
I still have a very small percentage of luck with the small sizes, but anything over 13mm forget about It, almost every box of larger sizes I get are completely worthless.
Now I'm at the point where I need to reload on several boxes again, and I'm afraid to order them. Doesn't seem to matter which supplier I get them from, the poor quality is about the same.
Lepro use to be the best priced all around tip on the market, There were sometimes small issues to deal with occasionally, but nothing this bad, and at least even with some of them culled, there were enough good ones to make them a good value. I sure wish They would get a handle on the quality control, but as Long as It's been now, and they are only getting worse, Makes It seem as if nothing is going to be done about It, so If I could find a comparably priced tip with the same characteristics, then It wouldn't take much to get me to switch.
Yeah, I use triangle too, and rarely have to toss one of those, but that serves a different customer type for Me then the lepros do, so I need both types. They are also about twice the price of what I pay for lepros, but at least I can get away with only stocking those in 2 sizes, and there's much less waste, so I guess price depends on how You look at It.
Greg
