phenolic tip vs hard leather

[Varney Cues]

Those grooves do look pretty interesting. But I would imagine they will wear down and the tip will get smoother as times goes on. Phenolic is hard...but its not steel. What has been your experience with the life of those grooves? The tip radius looks pretty close to my tip radius of about a quarter.

I use a canvas-resin...a little different than the standard phenolic. My personal cue is over a year old and gets used everyday...the grooves are still there. I see cues I've made several years ago...they still have the groves. Its my opinion that if you leave the tip alone & just break with it...the grooves will last. Unless you try & shape it or sand it. Occasionally I'll see one of my cues without the grooves...but each time it was because the owner had indeed been shaping/sanding/grinding on it somehow. Like you said, its not steel...so I'm sure over a period of time they may where down...I just haven't seen it yet. So if you leave it alone, play every day...the grooves will last indefinately. Of course as you can tell by the pic, I cut the grooves somewhat deep...you can not get the same effect with sandpaper. I give a lifetime warranty on my j/b tips & tip/ferrule combos...and I'll also clean the tip up, polish the ferrule, and recut grooves if needed, free of charge, for any of my customers with Varney j/b cues.

 

[supergreenman]

I use CA for all my leather tips, however after having the phenolic tip on my break cue pop off a couple of times I tried tweetens contact cement as an experiment. this was a year and a half ago and the tip is still on. (with constant use)

 

[Varney Cues]

I use CA for all my leather tips, however after having the phenolic tip on my break cue pop off a couple of times I tried tweetens contact cement as an experiment. this was a year and a half ago and the tip is still on. (with constant use)

Its because its rubberized and takes the shock much better than CA. If you can not thread a stemmed tip into the ferrule then I highly recommend Gorilla glue...and let it sit overnight with pressure.

 

[tommy84]

I use a Mythus by Marathon (Sledgehammer copy) with a phenolic all-in-one ferrule

I prefer this over a normal hard tip as it jumps so easy and still gives good control on the break.

I go for the second ball in 8-Ball with low-right english. Actually I never miscued on the break so far.

Just chalk well and hit it.

The jumping abilities of a phenolic B/J are only beaten by the special jump sticks.
As I don't want to by a breaking cue and a jump stick I stay with my copied Sledgehammer