I have played billiards for over fifty years, very good billiards and very bad billiards. Now I sell, repair and make custom pool cues. I proudly admit that many of my customers travel to our store to seek my advice and help with their billiard cue purchase.

A billiard cue is a functional tool necessary to participate in our wonderful sport and it can also be a true work of art to be treasured and enjoyed for a lifetime.

Serious pool players should, and most do, have their own personal cue. Players perform better and more confidently when using a familiar cue. Having your own pool cue can significantly reduce or even eliminate certain player performance factors. A player is less likely to hit the cue or abuse the tip, shaft, or butt of their own favorite cue.

Billiard cues are made up of many components. The one I’d like to focus on in this article is advice.

Most of the tips are made of leather and some are synthetic. Tip is probably the most important factor in the performance of a pool cue. I still believe in leather tips for the game in general, while I have found that a synthetic tip can be a solid advantage for jump and break shots.

Tips are made using various methods; however, most remain perforated in leather hides. Some pool tips are formed after being pierced, and I think these, including the multi-layer varieties, are more consistent in hardness. Other tips are drilled and top-molded at the same time using a machine concave punch. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that this manufacturing process allows the tip to come out of the punch rounded at the top. These types of cues represent the majority of cues on the market and are used in virtually all mass-produced billiard cues. These tips are harder around the outer edge than in the middle of the tip. This characteristic tends to lead to tip fungus over time, or a flattening of the middle of the tip pushing the edges of the tip outward over the circumference of the splint.

Leather is fit for purpose because it resists cue ball slippage and lacks elasticity. The tip of the cue hits the object ball and the leather compresses with a tendency to conform to the curvature of the cue ball. The leather does not regain its original shape until the cue ball has been pushed into its path, when the tip is no longer in contact with it.

I believe that hardness is the most important characteristic of a cleat. There really is no formal standard by which the hardness of the cleat tip is uniformly measured. Hardness can be approximated by pressing your thumbnail on the tip and releasing, or with the use of a hardness testing device (which costs about $ 1,000.00). The deeper the indentation in the tip of a cleat after impact, the smoother the tip will be. Generally, the thicker the tip, the smoother it is.

Most serious players are firm in choosing a hard or medium tip, while soft tips are generally said to be the preferred choice for beginners. However, I must admit that I have played for several years with a soft tip from Moori, and in one of the last seasons of the APA leagues I was undefeated (except for one game where I was defeated by a phenomenon with only a few weeks on the sport). .

The hardness of the tip is a personal choice when looking for a cue that is perfectly suited to the player and the game. If you want to find the perfect signal, seek the advice of someone in the know and try several to see which one works best for you and your game. There are many options for each cue function. Learn about them and select well. Take advantage of!

Len Van Hirtum