Tip replacement pricing

I am glad that not all the people on this forum disagree with my viewpoint on this topic. I have made the decision to start replacing my own tips. I will also either clean and polish my pool balls by hand or purchase a machine or possibly call the local bowling ally that has tables and ask if they have a polisher or possibly simply call that pool halls competitor pool hall and see what they have to offer. That particular pool hall has been rubbing me the wrong way since the second time I went in there. I do not go there every day but I typically go there once a week or so. I am on the verge of simply going to another place or simply working on my game at home. I have met someone that plays better pool than I do who also owns a table and they are looking for someone to compete with on a regular basis. That pool hall has three Diamond red 9ft, ten assorted Brunswick 9 foot tables, and 3 7 ft valley tables. My experience with the Owners up to this point has been less than stellar. My interaction with their tip / cue repairman leaves me wondering about his level of experience and knowing he will not stand behind his own work tells me I should be doing business elsewhere. They also recently offered free pool lessons from a guy that plays pretty well in local tournaments but when you look him up google finds more references to arrests than pool related things. While the majority of the people here seem to think the price is not far out of line they also reference most cue repair people will do other things included in their pricing if you allow them to. They also mention that the cue repair person is putting their name and rep on the line and would be responsible for any damages they did as well. In this instance that is not the case.

If having the ability to play against players that are better than me is the only thing that pool hall can offer me then that can be found in many other places. The fact of the matter is I was recently contacted by an older gentleman who lives close enough that he wants to start playing on a weekly basis. This man I believe is a higher skill level than I am at present and we could play against each other in our own homes. Honestly, the condition of my table is better than the ones at that pool hall.

I think that pool hall has basically lost my business at least for a while. I will probably meet up with my new pool partner there one more time after thanksgiving that is if we don't decide to choose another place all together. I just do not feel right patronizing a place that I feel like is trying to squeeze every penny they can out of me. I guess as a player starts to increase in skill level pool halls treat them worse. I have already stated that I think in any business customer service should play a big part in cultivating a customer. Repeat business should be what drives their bottom line up.

Personally I think that hall will fail if they continue to have the attitude of charging for everything they possibly can and no customer service. They have a website that is not updated or promoted at all. Instead they update their facebook page and that is their only form of advertising. I believe they are already struggling as they just got the city approval to serve food but have not yet purchased anything equipment or supply wise to make that a reality. Nor do they have a liquor license. Their main crowd are teenagers after dark.

Sam Walton founder of Walmart once said "There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."
 
:mad:



Okay I've read enough. What's the name of the pool room and who is the tip repairman?


Who's the guy that wants to give free lessons but you don't want him to give you lessons because of his drug use?


Hard to believe a pool player having a criminal record....



:rolleyes:




.
 
Kevin3824 said:
I am glad that not all the people on this forum disagree with my viewpoint on this topic. I have made the decision to start replacing my own tips. I will also either clean and polish my pool balls by hand or purchase a machine or possibly call the local bowling ally that has tables and ask if they have a polisher or possibly simply call that pool halls competitor pool hall and see what they have to offer. ...
Click to expand...

I didn't read the whole thread so maybe this had been suggested a time or two before.
Learning to replace your own tips, good plan. You might look at YouTube, there are some really good ideas.... and some really bad ones.

You may feel inclined to purchase a little electric motor or a cheap drill and fashion your own lathe for cleaning and tip maintenance. This can be done,
but it should be done with an abundance of caution, as easily as you might think you've come up with something that will work for you, you will be very
quick to wreck your shaft and pretty soon you'll find yourself several hundred dollars down in shafts.

A personal word of caution - what ever you might think of doing stay away from the cowboy lathe.

There is one other thing that may work for you if it's available - I bought a lathe and watched all the youtube I could find. I watched cuemakers and
repair guys and I asked questions when I coupld I taught myself to change tips and do some minor repairs and I do it because I like doing it, not to
make money doing it. I'll change tips, put on a wrap, clean, take out your dents, do whatever I can and for me to charge you for it I'd really have to not like you.

If you want a tip I don't have it you'll need to bring it with or I'll buy it and you can pay me for it. If you want to throw me a few bucks or buy me a diet soda
that's cool, if not then that's cool too. I try and keep it friendly. I know some people do this as a profit industry and some of those guys are artists and should
be paid whatever they want, it's their job.

But for me, I know there are a lot of people that just want to play pool and can't afford an artist or whatever, it shouldn't cost lots of money if it doesn't have to
 
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If I couldnt afford $20 to put a tip on, I would find a new hobby.

Local guy in Lafayette refused to take ANY money from me and I had him put on (2) tips. He doesnt drink beer so I couldnt even do that.:mad:

My advice, dont sweat the small stuff.....;)

Ken
 
john coloccia said:
You don't even need a lathe. I used to do them by hand all the time. It's really not that hard. Flattening the ferrule is the hardest part, but that's easily done with a razor blade and the right technique.

Doing it on the lathe is nice because it makes it easy to clean/polish the ferrule and burnish the tip. Whenever I do one, I polish the ferrule with various grits of polishing compound. It really helps get a lot of the little scratches out that hold chalk and make it look terrible. THAT is not so easy to do by hand. When I did it by hand, I would polish with various grits of micromesh, and it took forever.
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You make it sound so easy...
I do a fair bit of tip installs every year and when I get shafts from a do it yourselfer, more than 3 out of 4 feruules are damaged. Deep scratches is most common, ferules that are not faced off straght is also very common, Something like 1 of 4 ferrules are in so bad shape, that the only way forward is replacing the ferrule.
If your doing your ownv tips, you need one of those ferrule top sanders and a super sharp Japanese one edged knife, then place the flat side over the ferrule (wich you allready have put some painterstape on) the shave the tip excess gently off, while rotating the shaft with your other hand.
This works for layered tips and one piece tips. This technique will not work on break and jump tips.
Seeing how much players spend on beer, gambling and other stuff at the pool hall, $40-50 for a tip a few times of year seems like a small investement.
 
Kim Bye said:
You make it sound so easy...
I do a fair bit of tip installs every year and when I get shafts from a do it yourselfer, more than 3 out of 4 feruules are damaged. Deep scratches is most common, ferules that are not faced off straght is also very common, Something like 1 of 4 ferrules are in so bad shape, that the only way forward is replacing the ferrule.
If your doing your ownv tips, you need one of those ferrule top sanders and a super sharp Japanese one edged knife, then place the flat side over the ferrule (wich you allready have put some painterstape on) the shave the tip excess gently off, while rotating the shaft with your other hand.
This works for layered tips and one piece tips. This technique will not work on break and jump tips.
Seeing how much players spend on beer, gambling and other stuff at the pool hall, $40-50 for a tip a few times of year seems like a small investement.
Click to expand...

I bought the ferrule sanding machine before I had a lathe. It was so poorly built that I tried it a couple of times, and then tossed it out. It wasn't even straight. I'm sure there are some good ones out there, but I got a Friday night special for sure. I found I did a much better job by hand with a razor blade.

Yeah, you can definitely scratch the ferrule and do other bad things, but somehow lots and lots of us learned to do it without scratching anything up or ruining the ferrule. Maybe not today, but it was common to do your own tips when I was growing up.

I'm not saying everyone should run out and do it. I AM saying that I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone to do it for $10, or something like that. People should be payed reasonably for their time, and $10 is too low for a good job, IMHO. For people who don't want to pay someone to do it, and pay them something appropriate, you can just learn to do it yourself.
 
There was a player in N.J. that was on every road mans radar.
This player was known as the Legend. Once he started to lose it was like a river flowing. And he had the means to go off for 3K or better over a couple days. This was good money in the '80s.
He never booked a winner.

When I charged him $10 to put a new LePro tip on his Balabuska he threw a fit.
It was the first and last tip I did for him.
 
Here's my take on it. You are paying for one of two things when you pay someone to put a tip on your cue. 1. You are paying them because you don't have the skill to do it yourself. If this is the case, pay them what they ask.
2. You have the skill to put on your own tips but you are too lazy to put the tip on yourself. Pay them double.

When I was coming up, learning cue maintenance was part of learning how to play. If you needed a new tip, you paid the houseman $0.50, then he let you pick from a box of tips and most of the time let you use the sandpaper disc, a razorblade, a rubber band, the glue and an empty matchbook for free.

After someone messed up putting on a tip he would show you how to do it correctly for a dollar. People are too lazy to learn how to fix things these days or are in too much of a rush to take the time to do it right. You don't always need fancy equipment (nice when you have it to be sure but not always necessary).


That's my 2 cents for what it's worth. I've been retipping cues for over 30 years. As someone else said, it's not rocket science but you do have to practice and learn the right ways to do it and that takes time. If you can't or won't then do your research, ask to see samples of their work and pay them what they ask.
 
The tip repairmen in the carolinas(guylassey being the best) used to charge ten bucks to install a tip you brought them.mike is now charging 15 and does a perfect job every time.if you buy a tip off ebay(moori,kamuii clear,whatever... )and then have a cue guy install it,you will save about 5-10 bucks over actually buying the tip from said cue guy and having him install. Example moori medium,10-12 bucks on ebay,guylassey install 15 bucks,total 25-27 bucks. If you just buy the moori installed from mike i think it is 30-35. Kamuii clear 20-25 bucks on ebay plus 15 install = 35-40 bucks. Just buying tip from mike installed 50 i think. They make a few extra bucks for stocking(and therefore tying up their money) and selling you a tip. Most people spend the few extra dollars. I appreciate the fact that some of you guys do your own tip work by hand,but for the relatively small amount of money,having an experienced tip guy put the tip on with a lathe and BURNISH the tip with leather to help reduce mushrooming is definately worth it.not to mention all the cue guys like guylassey and joe blackburn(the two best in my opinion) will retrim and burnish for free later if they installed your tip. Once they rtrim your tip will stay perfectly shaped for the life of the tip. Pay the cue guy,15- 20 bucks for the install and let him make a living too.
 
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