Why does leather make the best tip?

Billy_Bob

Billy_Bob

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
What is it about leather which makes it best to be used for cue tips?

What qualities does a tip need to have anyway? (I know it needs to be able to hold chalk, perhaps squish in a little when it hits the ball and then regain its shape, and maybe naturally wear down a little with use so the surface does not become slick.)

Why does leather hold chalk better than anything else?

Anyone ever experiment with different types of leather like say rat leather or horse leather? How about fish skin like shark or whale?

Why is a pig's skin better than a cow's? Size of animal? Thickness of skin? The rate at which the animal grows (pig very fast)?
 
The best is..........

(IMHO)
The VERY BEST tip comes from a 2.3 ton Rhino. I like to use the fore-skin (leather) from a recently circumcised male Rhino.
It is the VERY BEST tip material for cues - BUT - they are very expensive.
The leather from this circumcised Rhino isn't that costly to make - BUT - the African Natives that harvest them want to charge a fortune.
I do have 3 that I can let go of - BUT - I would have to charge you $2,600 apiece because the tribe that has been getting them for me is running short on them.
Not the Rhinos - The Natives!


TY & GL
 
OldHasBeen said:
(IMHO)
The VERY BEST tip comes from a 2.3 ton Rhino. I like to use the fore-skin (leather) from a recently circumcised male Rhino.
It is the VERY BEST tip material for cues - BUT - they are very expensive.
The leather from this circumcised Rhino isn't that costly to make - BUT - the African Natives that harvest them want to charge a fortune.
I do have 3 that I can let go of - BUT - I would have to charge you $2,600 apiece because the tribe that has been getting them for me is running short on them.
Not the Rhinos - The Natives!


TY & GL
Click to expand...

Yeah, and the price is going up since Michael Jackson volunteered for the harvesting position - provided he could work only with 'juvenile' rhinos.
 
Duct tape and silly putty only last 10 minutes....OHB you only have 3 rhino tip tips I was looking for 5 :D
 
Billy_Bob said:
What is it about leather which makes it best to be used for cue tips?

What qualities does a tip need to have anyway? (I know it needs to be able to hold chalk, perhaps squish in a little when it hits the ball and then regain its shape, and maybe naturally wear down a little with use so the surface does not become slick.)

Why does leather hold chalk better than anything else?

Anyone ever experiment with different types of leather like say rat leather or horse leather? How about fish skin like shark or whale?

Why is a pig's skin better than a cow's? Size of animal? Thickness of skin? The rate at which the animal grows (pig very fast)?
Click to expand...



LOL to OldHasBeen! On a serious note, it's not necessarily the best. It's what's required under BCA specifications. There are other materials out there. Some even boast that you don't even need to use chalk.
 
Rhino leather tip.

As much as I liked OHB (RIP) he made a mistake on his calculations! Later testing concluded a 3515 lb Rhino produced the ultimate leather for tips! Actually an interesting question and I would like to see as many choices as possible to be available. Would definitely add income to sales.
 
Leather, tanned, has just enough moisture to be a good tip, hard enough to keep shape, but forgiving enough to take a lot of pressure. Composites don't do it as good as leather.

All the best,
WW
 
Billy_Bob said:
What is it about leather which makes it best to be used for cue tips?

What qualities does a tip need to have anyway? (I know it needs to be able to hold chalk, perhaps squish in a little when it hits the ball and then regain its shape, and maybe naturally wear down a little with use so the surface does not become slick.)
Click to expand...

It really doesn't need some of these things. It needs to have a high coefficient of friction with a cue ball, or hold a substance that does. It needs a high coefficient of restitution in order to give energy back to the cue after it compresses. It needs to compress enough to prolong the contact time long enough to transfer english. It needs these characteristics to be stable over time, temperature, humidity, and use. Cheapness is apparently not a required characteristic. :wink2:

Thank you kindly.
 
Corwyn_8 said:
It really doesn't need some of these things. It needs to have a high coefficient of friction with a cue ball, or hold a substance that does. It needs a high coefficient of restitution in order to give energy back to the cue after it compresses. It needs to compress enough to prolong the contact time long enough to transfer english. It needs these characteristics to be stable over time, temperature, humidity, and use. Cheapness is apparently not a required characteristic. :wink2:

Thank you kindly.
Click to expand...

It needs a little more than the above to work. I've been horsing around with some composite tip material lately. There are a few shots that leather can accomplish, that synthetics can't. I've traced it down to the COR of leather not being uniform. Leather compresses to a point, and then it stops compressing. Polymers do not. You can have a soft leather tip hit a cueball. If you hit it softly, the tip compresses a little. If you hit the ball hard, it compresses to a point that the tip stops compressing. This is why tips will mushroom.

I've been working with some polyurethane materials in hopes of making a synthetic tip. You lose the power strokes. Force follow and snap draws go out the window. The only thing I can attribute this to is that leather has a varying COR. You can use a rockwell hardness scale to measure the hardness of tips before they strike anything. Your elkmaster or water buffalo tip will compress differently when you hit the cueball. What is uniform is that, at some point, they will stop compressing. That's why leather seems to be the best choice for a tip material, so far.
 
What is it about leather which makes it best to be used for cue tips? It is compressible, durable, and cheap.

Why does leather hold chalk better than anything else? Pretty sure other substances can hold chalk better.

Anyone ever experiment with different types of leather like say rat leather or horse leather? How about fish skin like shark or whale? I have tried a few, but I hate the Buffalo hide leather--way too slick.

Why is a pig's skin better than a cow's? The ratio between compressability and durability.
Size of animal? As far as I know this does not matter.
Thickness of skin? You want the skin thick enough to make a tip out of.
The rate at which the animal grows (pig very fast)? probably does not mater.
 
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