Tip shaping

[jrctherake]

Both OB and Predator have close up pictures of their shafts including layered tips. One shows very clearly a few crumbs at the top of the tip, all that is left of the top layer after an install. If those layers are going to have much chance of lasting a chalking stroke that doesn't come from the outside inwards like you are trying to peel layers off is better. If you were trying to separate layers or damage the tip with the chalk, how would you do it? When you think about it that is exactly how many people chalk!

Without using a lot of spin, I generally chalk once between games and another time when I do need more than a tip or tip and a half of spin. That is once between games and once or twice in a game at most usually. If I just chalked recently I won't chalk between games. Bought a gross of Master blue for seventeen cents a cube years ago, that is gonna outlast me. I had collected a few pieces of flavor of the week chalk over a couple of years but I couldn't see trying to fix something that wasn't broken so I gave them to a friend.

As a serious competitor or gambler it is worth trying things that might give an edge but if there is no edge no sense putting the latest golden eagle on your cue. I have raced my own circle track cars, competed with fully custom rifles and handbuilt pistols, I'm not scared of spending money to be better but I can't remember the last time I miscued.

Hu

I've looked at the pics and agree with your theory.

Unlike you though, I chalk VERY OFTEN. Sometimes, I believe "chalking" is part of my PSR. It may be in my head but, it "seems" when I am in whatever gear i have.... i usually chalk way more than when I'm not at my best.

<<<<<<<<<< dunno, I'm still trying to figure out how to put a 1 pack together.

 

[ShootingArts]

often advocated

I've looked at the pics and agree with your theory.

Unlike you though, I chalk VERY OFTEN. Sometimes, I believe "chalking" is part of my PSR. It may be in my head but, it "seems" when I am in whatever gear i have.... i usually chalk way more than when I'm not at my best.

<<<<<<<<<< dunno, I'm still trying to figure out how to put a 1 pack together.

Chalking as part of your preshot routine is often advocated. Those that do usually use the lightest touch possible and often just a stroke or two in a straight line, they haven't really did a good job chalking the tip. However, with a little luck all of the chalking before every shot is cumulative and they have chalk between the tip and cue ball where they hit it.

Chalking as part of your preshot routine is usually more of a chance to survey the table or stop and think before getting ahead of yourself shooting too quickly before you have really built your runout pattern. I started playing chess a few years before pool so saw patterns well. I sometimes went the long way around the table to grab a chalk cube. When I did you could be pretty sure I was taking a few seconds to look or think things over without being obvious, same as many use chalking in the preshot routine today.

I started playing pool long before there was much in the way of instructional material and I have never had a preshot routine. Worked on one awhile when I came back to pool after a long break but I feel better and shoot stronger just being me. That isn't to say I think a consistent preshot routine is bad, I am just old and don't stay in tune well enough to need to chase small edges.

Hu

 

[JessEm]

Nice thing about being the distributor, I don't have to harvest them or process the leather! Rumor has it that the dragons are extremely rare and only found in a "no contact" area of a rain forest. Could be true, could be the supplier protecting his sources. These tips were first called "french elk" back in the mid-eighties. They were perhaps invented by a cajun who lived deep in a swamp near Prairieville LA. Suppliers aren't always the most honest!

By using single layer tips and rolling dents into the tip to hold chalk instead of chewing through layers of a tip with a tool that damages the leather tips last far longer. Add a playing style that very rarely uses extreme spin and I don't put much wear and tear on a tip. Don't play much these days but the tips lasted for years when I played over fifty hours a week too.

Back then ask a top player what tip he used and the most common answer was "I don't know, it was on the shaft when I bought the stick" occasionally "I had Joe put a tip on for me, don't know what it is."

A freshly chalked piece of pretty much any leather with a little curvature on it will work just fine but that would hardly justify today's tip prices, would it? I use my own duds pressed back down to about the height they were before soaking.

Hu

I met a distributor of said tips once. Said his supplier was in 'nam. Or maybe he was protesting nam, I don't remember. Anyway, I think he was from Oregon.

They briefly occupied a vacant house down the street. Every Sunday, everybody would clean the house. There was always music, and everybody was dancing, sometimes naked, around the house. Not hippie, but very free. After a month or two of this, one day they were just gone. Up and left.

He said they were from Oregon but prior to coming here I think they just drove around to pool halls.