Playing characteristics of triangles vs lePros

nineballsafety8

nineballsafety8

6ft 5" 285, hits 'em hard
Silver Member
I have been through the whole gamut of tips out there... kamui, moori, emerald, black king, black heart, onyx, everest, sniper, ultrskins, triumphs etc... but although there are several that I like, and like quite a bit I always find myself going back to a triangle with a red fiber pad under it.
Now this is going to sound rediculously petty, and I am fully aware of this, but I am getting rather annoyed at how the SIDES of my triangles won't stay burnished. They play fantastic, but they look like doo doo after about 3 days of use, and need to be reburnished.

I was debating on trying to lepros on fiber pads, as they polish up and look fantastic, but they are one of the few tips that I have never tried.

Thoughts?

My main concern with a tip is the sound it makes... I can make pretty much any tip play well (except the new moori meds, which miscue more than any tip I have ever seen), to include playing with a phenolic tip. But the SOUND of a triangle is the best representation of "indicating a well struck ball by sound" as I have ever found.
 
Just about all of the single layered tips do this until they are beaten down. Are you having the tip recut on the lathe or using a mushroom tool?
 
The same tip has been on that shaft for over 7 months, and I touch it up on the lathe atleast once a week.
Its not mushrooming, just getting fuzzy.
I am not having to remove any material from the tip, just burnish.
A quick touch with some beeswax, and some pressure from a paper towel and its good as new. Just getting tired of having to do it all the freakin time.
 
Get some of the 15mm Triangles from Atlas and soak them in milk for a day or two and then press them in a vise or tip press. This makes a very consistent tip. Just press them enough to flatten the dome and leave them pressed for 24hrs. I too have gone back after trying the layer cake route. The pressed triangles hold chalk very well and play great.
 
On the average, LePros are slightly softer than Triangles... but LePros produce a harder hit, IMO. Triangles are courser than LePros thus the burnishing problem. But that's one of the nice features of them. They really hold chalk well.

Kamui black mediums seems to me to be the laminated tip most like Triangles. Likewise, Onyx hits like a LePro. All of this is IMO only.

The problem with Tweeten tips are that the are inconsistent, tip to tip. Good ones are hard to beat. Without checking the hardness of each tip with a durometer it's just a crap shoot.
 
I tried the old superglue trick, to get the sides looking all spiffy, which worked great, but it made the tip feel "brittle" under extreme spin applications, the sides of the tip no longer gave under pressure when an extreme amound of spin was applied.
 
nineballsafety8 said:
I have been through the whole gamut of tips out there... kamui, moori, emerald, black king, black heart, onyx, everest, sniper, ultrskins, triumphs etc... but although there are several that I like, and like quite a bit I always find myself going back to a triangle with a red fiber pad under it.
Now this is going to sound rediculously petty, and I am fully aware of this, but I am getting rather annoyed at how the SIDES of my triangles won't stay burnished. They play fantastic, but they look like doo doo after about 3 days of use, and need to be reburnished.

I was debating on trying to lepros on fiber pads, as they polish up and look fantastic, but they are one of the few tips that I have never tried.

Thoughts?

My main concern with a tip is the sound it makes... I can make pretty much any tip play well (except the new moori meds, which miscue more than any tip I have ever seen), to include playing with a phenolic tip. But the SOUND of a triangle is the best representation of "indicating a well struck ball by sound" as I have ever found.
Click to expand...


Jay

Since you have experience with a lot of different tip types, can you tell me which of the tips hold the chalk best?

I don't have a hardness or softness preference as much as I prefer a tip that will hold chalk, not glaze over quickly and will not miscue with extreme elnglish.

Any opinions are greatly aprreciated.

Thanks

Kevin
 
Kevin Lindstrom said:
Jay

Since you have experience with a lot of different tip types, can you tell me which of the tips hold the chalk best?

I don't have a hardness or softness preference as much as I prefer a tip that will hold chalk, not glaze over quickly and will not miscue with extreme elnglish.

Any opinions are greatly aprreciated.

Thanks

Kevin
Click to expand...

Milk duds, then good triangles... no question

Sent from my LG-P930 using Tapatalk 2
 
take a LePro and CRUSH IT and i mean CRUSH IT. this will get it all nice and tight . Doing this you will find your bad tips and your good tips from a box of them and they are dirt cheap. They play the SAME from the time you put them on till you take them off. now i just recently after 20+ years of playing with LePro tips switched to a Emerald Tip but im still CRUSHING them. Hope this helps .
 
I started out with Elk Master, changed to French Champions, and finally switched to Le Pros when I found out I like a harder tip. Out of the six shafts on the two cues I have today, I have one Le Pro that has been on the shaft since at least 2000 or 2001 when Joe Blackburn dressed the tip and cleaned the shaft at the US Open. I play with it probably three or four times a month, on average. It's one of the few Le Pros I've had over the years that has needed no shaping or burnishing and still plays like it did when it was put on. I don't even remember who put it on, Mike Gulyassy, I'm thinking. Triangles on all my other three Dishaw shafts, need some work from time to time. Most Triangles I've used have played about like Le Pros but both seem to need to be shaped/burnished from time to time. The one Le Pro I have now seems to be the exception. The Triangles on my Varney were soaked in something of Kevin's creation and have held up well, better than two of the ones on my Dishaw.
 
nineballsafety8 said:
The same tip has been on that shaft for over 7 months, and I touch it up on the lathe atleast once a week.

Its not mushrooming, just getting fuzzy.

I am not having to remove any material from the tip, just burnish.

A quick touch with some beeswax, and some pressure from a paper towel and its good as new. Just getting tired of having to do it all the freakin time.
Click to expand...



Sand it once or twice with grid 800 and it's done.


Als Einstein Examina abnahm, fragte ihn einmal ein Student: "Sie stellen in diesem Semester ja genau die gleichen Fragen wie beim letzten Mal." Darauf Einstein: "Das ist wahr. Nur die Antworten sind diesmal anders."
 
Tips

After playing exclusively with Lepros for many years I have been playing with Ultra Skins since last July and love them. Out of a box of 50 a few lepros will be bad. Buts seems of late not very many at all. None of my tips mushroom hardly at all, but am using a lathe and burnishing well. I never tip pick or scuff the tip and have some that still look new after a year or so. I have a Madden cue that John put a lepro on and 2 years later it was still 80% to new. I see guys grinding on a tip right after they miscue. All they are doing is breaking open the tip structure and now it will mushroom and wearout faster. If you miscue, its your stroke. I do not think triangles are as good as Lepro but many will disagree. Good luck.
 
Just for grins, a few months ago I put an old Le Pro on my stick. Once I started to work it I was amazed at how long the leather fibers were. I played with it for a couple of weeks and then felt it was too alien from all the layered tips I've been using in recent memory. So now I'm back to a black Kamui SS.

Lou Figueroa
 
Thanks Lou, I will have to let you hit a few with my "special triangles" when we get together after your match with JB
 
The Lepros may be inconsistent but when I get the right one they're my favorite by far.
Tip: (pun intended) When choosing a Lepro out of many, look closely at the glue side...the smoother the appearance the likelihood of you getting a superior/more pressed tip out of the bunch goes wayy up. ~~~ from my experience.
 
The Triangle is a coarse grain tip, which seems to be the case with chrome-tanned tips.

Here's a tip that works for me. After the sides of the Triangle are finished, paint them with a Marks-A-Lot black marker. Not a Sharpie. The Marks-A-Lot for me anyhow, seems to provide a shiny appearance, after some buffing with a wet thumb and paper towel. The Sharpie, not so much. This makes me think that the Marks-A-Lot has just a bit of oily liquid in it that will burnish the sides of the Triangle.
 
nineballsafety8 said:
The same tip has been on that shaft for over 7 months, and I touch it up on the lathe atleast once a week.
Its not mushrooming, just getting fuzzy.
I am not having to remove any material from the tip, just burnish.
A quick touch with some beeswax, and some pressure from a paper towel and its good as new. Just getting tired of having to do it all the freakin time.
Click to expand...

Throw away the wax and use water, which hardens leather, rather than
softening it.

Dale
 
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