Tip size
- Thread starter Ed Keeney
- Start date
Skinny shafts almost never work to your advantage. 10.5mm is generally way too small for pool. If you have played for a year, I doubt you have the stroke needed to take advantage of the smaller impact point. 12.5mm ish seems to be the size that works best for just about everyone.
Moe Szyslak
Active member
I smell a lot of witchcraft coming on.....
You get more spin with a larger/smaller tip
A small tip makes it harder to shoot
Anything less than 12.5 is impossible to play. Don't snooker players use much smaller tips? Yes, but it's different cause...
You get more feel with a smaller tip
No you get less feel with a smaller tip
etc
You get more spin with a larger/smaller tip
A small tip makes it harder to shoot
Anything less than 12.5 is impossible to play. Don't snooker players use much smaller tips? Yes, but it's different cause...
You get more feel with a smaller tip
No you get less feel with a smaller tip
etc
edit: didn't catch the irony
FWIW, I read that as he started playing with the smaller tip a year ago. Not that he started playing pool a year ago...
I also find that anything smaller than 12.5mm ish is uncomfortable. Equally, 13mm feels too big. Isn't it amazing the difference that half a millimeter can make?
Shaft profile has a lot to do with what tip size works. I suspect carbon fiber will usher in a new era of acceptable tip sizes too. The small tips in snooker are almost always paired with a much more conical taper shaft unlike the long pro tapers used in pool.
When out of stroke I play best with a 12.25mm to 12.75mm tip and shaft. In stroke I might go down as small as 11mm. My CF shaft is 11.8mm and works fine for me.
Hu
When out of stroke I play best with a 12.25mm to 12.75mm tip and shaft. In stroke I might go down as small as 11mm. My CF shaft is 11.8mm and works fine for me.
Hu
i think azb poster patrick johnson champions small tips. i like 12.2mm, but i also have a 11.7mm that i use sometimes. tuned most of my shafts to my liking on my lathe. 10.5mm is way too small for me.
I play with a 10.5mm Cynergy. I bought a 11.8mm Revo and sold it because I preferred the smaller Cynergy tip. I bought a Rhino 10.5mm shaft and like it. I like the pro taper of it better than the Revo's and Cynergy's hybrid conical shafts.
It is my preference mostly because I seem to see better and easier to play.
The problem with 10.5mm is that there aren't many vendors: Cuetec Cynergy, Rhino, Cuppa, Konllen, Cuedesg, Preoaidr, David Loman, and OKHealing.
It is my preference mostly because I seem to see better and easier to play.
The problem with 10.5mm is that there aren't many vendors: Cuetec Cynergy, Rhino, Cuppa, Konllen, Cuedesg, Preoaidr, David Loman, and OKHealing.
Who sells 10.5mm shafts for American pool besides Cuetec Cynergy?
Moe Szyslak
Active member
I would play 3 cushion with an 11.8 and the much bigger balls, then play pool with a 12.5 on these tiny little balls and it feels really weird. Like hitting a tiny ball with a baseball bat. It just feels better to me to have a relatively smaller tip, less clunky. But I don't get how anybody thinks you're going to be more or less accurate with a different sized tip. You're either hitting the right spot or ya ain't.
The more that I play this game and the better that I become at position play- I tend too believe that a smaller diameter tip ( say 11.5 to 12.5 or so) would work best if you have truly fine tuned your hit placement on the cue ball to the point that, as a a player, you can actually see and discern the difference in cue ball position resulting from mm differences in the cb strike.
In other words, you really need to be good enough and knowledgeable enough from experience, to know that you can measure you final CB resting place in approx. half in inch segments based upon where you contact the CB as a primary factor- of course along with all the other speed and position related affects on the CB.
13MM was always sort of the given standard starting point- give or take- yes that can work- but like every sport or game- highly skilled successful competitors fine tune all the small factors that add up to a winning formula.
Confidence in one's cueing abilities usually leads one to begin believing that they can move that CB in closer to ideal with just a few subtle improvements- I do see the logic in a smaller diameter cue tip being able to create a more precise end result- you are now striking a more precise point on the CB.
In other words, you really need to be good enough and knowledgeable enough from experience, to know that you can measure you final CB resting place in approx. half in inch segments based upon where you contact the CB as a primary factor- of course along with all the other speed and position related affects on the CB.
13MM was always sort of the given standard starting point- give or take- yes that can work- but like every sport or game- highly skilled successful competitors fine tune all the small factors that add up to a winning formula.
Confidence in one's cueing abilities usually leads one to begin believing that they can move that CB in closer to ideal with just a few subtle improvements- I do see the logic in a smaller diameter cue tip being able to create a more precise end result- you are now striking a more precise point on the CB.
Moe Szyslak
Active member
The point you hit the cueball at is going to make the difference in where the cueball is going to go.
wow, that's deep. and obvious.
Moe Szyslak
Active member
Apparently not 
xX-Wizard-Xx
Well-known member
i usually use a pencil
Moe Szyslak
Active member
Lemme guess, it's a tradeoff between way more spin but much less accuracy??
xX-Wizard-Xx
Well-known member
no ... sometimes i need a redo and the eraser works great
Use what works best for you, if it working, why ask if its good, bad, or what?
You need confusion.
You need confusion.
Play with 11.6 wood... Only CF shaft I enjoyed playing with was the cynergy 10.5
This has nothing to do with tip size. Rather, I grew accustomed to the skinnier shaft in my open bridge. I can play just as well with a 12.5, and did so for some time after an equipment upgrade.
As far as snake oil is concerned. I've always held the belief that you could in theory take advantage of a larger tip and shape a flat spot to whatever amount at it's center. This, again in theory, this would allow a tiny bit of breathing room for the shooter to miss center CB but still have the shot manifest correctly. I've never experimented with this, or care to. Just a random thought that jumped into my mind years ago, while trying to sort out why players love massive tips.
This has nothing to do with tip size. Rather, I grew accustomed to the skinnier shaft in my open bridge. I can play just as well with a 12.5, and did so for some time after an equipment upgrade.
As far as snake oil is concerned. I've always held the belief that you could in theory take advantage of a larger tip and shape a flat spot to whatever amount at it's center. This, again in theory, this would allow a tiny bit of breathing room for the shooter to miss center CB but still have the shot manifest correctly. I've never experimented with this, or care to. Just a random thought that jumped into my mind years ago, while trying to sort out why players love massive tips.
Moe Szyslak
Active member
In life and in pool, it ain't the size of the tip, but how you use it.
If it's the flat spot that's working the magic, why couldn't you just put a flat spot on any size tip? If the size of the flat spot is the business, why not use a cue that's the size of the cueball itself and sand the end completely flat and use that? Then you're guaranteed to hit center ball every time. I guess?
If it's the flat spot that's working the magic, why couldn't you just put a flat spot on any size tip? If the size of the flat spot is the business, why not use a cue that's the size of the cueball itself and sand the end completely flat and use that? Then you're guaranteed to hit center ball every time. I guess?