Tiger Products IceBreaker Tips, and COMMENTS

Broken IceBreakers

I installed 3 of them so far and 2 of them have cracked around the outer phenolic edge after a few weeks of play.

I returned 1 and Tiger sent me a replacement after a few emails.

The problem is they are a great tip but in my opinion they do not stand up to the harder breaker.

I hope they are stronger when fitted to the Icebreaker cue.

I fitted them to 13mm break shafts - Lot of money for a tip that can split.
 
BAD NEWS.
angeryonfire.gif
angeryonfire.gif
angeryonfire.gif
angeryonfire.gif
angeryonfire.gif
angeryonfire.gif
 
Tiger Grrrrr!

I am surprised they sent you a new one. When my sniper tip failed in the first week they told me it was installed incorrectly sent me a real long email and would not send me another one. After a few emails back and forth they still would not just drop one in the mail to me. Now, at the time I was very very close to buying one of their cues, (I tried one in Vegas). I figured if the tip was going to cost them 2 or 3 bucks to keep a customer happy and they wouldn't well I am certainly not going to buy a cue from them. If a friend borrows $20 from you and you never see him again it was worth it! That is my 2 cents!
 
Bigkahuna said:
I am surprised they sent you a new one. When my sniper tip failed in the first week they told me it was installed incorrectly sent me a real long email and would not send me another one. After a few emails back and forth they still would not just drop one in the mail to me. Now, at the time I was very very close to buying one of their cues, (I tried one in Vegas). I figured if the tip was going to cost them 2 or 3 bucks to keep a customer happy and they wouldn't well I am certainly not going to buy a cue from them. If a friend borrows $20 from you and you never see him again it was worth it! That is my 2 cents!

They only sent me a new tip after I sent photos of the correctly installed tip and the massive crack in it. At first they told me that they would not help but I would not take no for an answer as the tip was only a few days old.

I will not install any icebreaker now as I just can say how long they will last.
 
See below the first reply I got about tiger icebreaker when I emailed Tiger to say it cracked.

"When we were working on this tip and after all tests we were doing in the factory, we came to conclusion that compare to lot of other phenolic tips this phenolic is the strongest. However with all this said we have heard that players sometimes do break tips. We have many times talked about a possibility of this issue. This material is still the best of any out there, but when a player overpowers it, there is a minor chance to crack it. This is not a tip problem or a problem from a manufacturer (Tiger), it is a capability of a material which is made by a different company for a different purpose. The leather does take away the full on power from the material which means the chance of cracking the tip would be less than any other just phenolic tips. It is unfortunate because it is no ones fault, not yours, not the players and certainly not ours, but at this time there is nothing we can do about it. The player has to adjust the break, because with this tip there is no reason to put all the power, like a regular leather tip. We always experiment as we will continue to do so with this tip, trying to find way to improve, adjust and do everything necessary to minimize any chance of problems, but at this time this is the only tip after selling over a 1000 that we heard has cracked. It was decided from the beginning that phenolic material cracking is an existing issue with any one of the companies making tips and players do know about it. I am very sorry if this is not a typical way we respond for any of our tips where we use all our materials and do have better warranty on any of the other regular Tiger tips, but as for Icebreaker, if it cracks, sorry. I want to make sure you know about it and I tried to answer as honest as I could.



Thank You

Tony Kalamdaryan"


In the end after I wrote back and said this is not good enough they sent me a new tip but the first email was interesting.

I will say they really work well and are a great tip and I love how you can stop the cue ball on a power break. I hope all is better now and the problems were confined to the first run of these tips.
 
I might be the only one to say it but i love the icebreaker, i have one fitted to a 314-2 to break with and i really like the way it hits the cueball.

The Mole has told me about his problems.............

I guess as i dont try and break that hard just a firm break that i'm not having any problems.

My next break shaft will be having a leather tip as i never feel the need to hit the balls that hard and i dont think with my break there is any difference in power between phenolic and leather. Just more accurate with the leather.

I would say to try them as its not a massive amount of money if they work for you.
 
Bigkahuna said:
I am surprised they sent you a new one. When my sniper tip failed in the first week they told me it was installed incorrectly sent me a real long email and would not send me another one. After a few emails back and forth they still would not just drop one in the mail to me. Now, at the time I was very very close to buying one of their cues, (I tried one in Vegas). I figured if the tip was going to cost them 2 or 3 bucks to keep a customer happy and they wouldn't well I am certainly not going to buy a cue from them. If a friend borrows $20 from you and you never see him again it was worth it! That is my 2 cents!


How does a tip 'fail'?
 
PROG8R said:
How does a tip 'fail'?

Moles tip split at the side if i remember right.

If you have not seen an icebreaker tip its basically a phenolic tip with the middle hollowed out and the hole filled with leather......
 
Dave Mackay said:
Moles tip split at the side if i remember right.

If you have not seen an icebreaker tip its basically a phenolic tip with the middle hollowed out and the hole filled with leather......

Layered Leather but you are correct. I do not understand the Spliting, as the Layered Leather should not effect the P henolic Tip Strenth IMHO. Unless you Break like King Kong.
 
It is silly that they do not just put a tip in the mail even if it costs them more than they made on the initial sale. If the same person ends up breaking tip after tip then you tell him "sorry" but it is pretty weird to not replace a broken piece of merchandise that costs a few bucks to keep a customer happy.

PM Crown City Corey when he gets back. I would bet that he will try to help you out.
 
CocoboloCowboy said:
Layered Leather but you are correct. I do not understand the Spliting, as the Layered Leather should not effect the P henolic Tip Strenth IMHO. Unless you Break like King Kong.
By taking the center out of the (linen)phenolic tip, you have weakened the tip.
The inpact is now sent to the inner (surrounding the leather) and outer sides of the tip that is only about 5/8" in thickness.
I am not at all suprised they are breaking.
I will post a picture of my break tip tonight, I designed this long before Tiger marketed the Icebreaker.
Dom
 
JCIN said:
It is silly that they do not just put a tip in the mail even if it costs them more than they made on the initial sale. If the same person ends up breaking tip after tip then you tell him "sorry" but it is pretty weird to not replace a broken piece of merchandise that costs a few bucks to keep a customer happy.

PM Crown City Corey when he gets back. I would bet that he will try to help you out.

Well that is what I thought but they were claiming this was an epidemic for them to have so many tips installed incorrectly they just couldn't replace every tip that was installed incorrectly. Now the tip may have been installed incorrectly but may have just been a bad tip. It was installed by a local cue maker here and I assume he knows how to put a tip on. They lost a customer they could have easily kept. There several emails back and forth and they were sure this was the position they needed to take.
 
Tips and warranty...

Hiya Folks,

Lessee...

Sorry to any in this thread that have had an issue with Tiger brand tips.

1stly - Snipers

Over the years, there has been a learning curve for cue tip installers with regard to properly installing a Sniper, or any laminated tip for that matter, without destroying the tip in the cutting/trimming process. We do not take any complaints of the Sniper failing at face value! We must investigate. 99% of Sniper tip failures are the fault of whomever put the tip on! And the installer, as it is a service/labor failure, not Tiger (manufacturer) should replace that tip. At times, on a case by case basis, we may go ahead and replace the Sniper, but only after seeing the tip in person - you gotta send us one (if you had more than one from the same box, or at least a picture).

2ndly - IceBreakers (the newest in our line-up)

I read the email from Tony, and what he means to be saying is that industry wide, there is an awareness that Phenolics in general can crack under the stress of being used break tip (or tip ferrule combo). Our concept, with the laminated leather core, actually reduces the risk of said cracking by absorbing a bit of the impact in the leather, but that does not mean it is impossible to crack it. Since this is our newest tip, we are still collecting feedback on them and if anyone has issues with this tip, just let me know. I may or may not need you to send me the cracked tip, but I'll be happy to replace it.

As far as IceBreakers Tips go, installation really is not of much concern (like Sniper's) - as long as a lathe was used.

Makes sense?

In other words, if there is an issue just let us know, we'll do our best to help.

Just another note about email's - people can often mistake tone in an email and English is not Tony's first language so at times his emails can be misunderstood. If you ever met him and talked with him, his sincerity and integrity would never be doubted.
 
Back
Top