New Aurora snooker tips samples

[Mick Dundee]

Ok here's my first impressions
I actually had a bit of trouble cutting the tip down after fitting
this led to to the tip layers not delaminating but being a bit spongy
unless this is the normal elasticity in the tip?
I foundi had to use slightly coarser sandpaper to get the tip
to hold the chalk well
when I started playing with the tip it played a little softer than
I expected but soon settled down and the spin generated was on
a par with any other tip I've played with.
I had one pretty big miscue on the first big screw shot I plated after
fitting but no damage to the tip,as I said I just gave it a slight rough up
and no more problems
after a session of play the held it's shape fantastically well
and played really well.
All in all a very good tip

[poolqjunkie]

Ok here's my first impressions
I actually had a bit of trouble cutting the tip down after fitting
this led to to the tip layers not delaminating but being a bit spongy
unless this is the normal elasticity in the tip?
I foundi had to use slightly coarser sandpaper to get the tip
to hold the chalk well
when I started playing with the tip it played a little softer than
I expected but soon settled down and the spin generated was on
a par with any other tip I've played with.
I had one pretty big miscue on the first big screw shot I plated after
fitting but no damage to the tip,as I said I just gave it a slight rough up
and no more problems
after a session of play the held it's shape fantastically well
and played really well.
All in all a very good tip

Hi Mick,
Thank you for the review.
I am a bit concerned as this tip should not be that hard to trim--I assume you had the side with the "G" glued to the ferrule? Most people reported that it is actually harder to shape and easier to trim, which is because it has a direction and is designed to be that way.
It is fine if you need to use coarser sand paper at first, it is adviced that finer sand paper (e.g. 400) is used to fine sand it to keep the fibre intact.
Please give the tip a few more sessions and if you have any more question, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you once again for your interest in the new Aurora snooker tip.

first impressions are

the tip is very easy to fit and shape, i used a 240 grit slowly sanding downwards to get the shape going then used a 400 grit for final shaping and the tip did not fray at all.

ive had a few sessions with the tip now and it just feels better and better it has settled very well it holds the chalk great and has grip on the cue ball

i will give a review in the coming weeks where i will be having a fair few hours practice to comment on shape and hardness etc of the tip

Thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate your taking the time to post it. Thank you.

[Mick Dundee]

No problems at all with the tip
I played my first match with it tonight & won 2-0
so can't be bad
I definately glued it on the right way up but I found
the opposite difficult to trim easy to shape
it's probably me as I said the tips playing fine and still holdingits shape
thanks again..Mick

[poolqjunkie]

No problems at all with the tip
I played my first match with it tonight & won 2-0
so can't be bad
I definately glued it on the right way up but I found
the opposite difficult to trim easy to shape
it's probably me as I said the tips playing fine and still holdingits shape
thanks again..Mick

Well, winning is probably because of your skill but may you just keep winning...as it will hopefully make my tip look good, too.

[ivanko]

i am very impressed with this tip, especially it had only one glue line on the chalk surface. and the outlook is grand.

I have just only use kamui black soft before the Aurora laminated tip sample, i think both of them are elastic, holds chalk easily. and good for playing:snooker:
but the sample is a bit hard for trimming.

[poolqjunkie]

i am very impressed with this tip, especially it had only one glue line on the chalk surface. and the outlook is grand.

I have just only use kamui black soft before the Aurora laminated tip sample, i think both of them are elastic, holds chalk easily. and good for playing:snooker:
but the sample is a bit hard for trimming.

Thank you for the feedback. Appreciate it.
Kamui makes very good tips.
The Aurora tip should be a tiny bit firmer than the Kamui when it comes to holding its shape, which is probably why it is harder to trim.
Once you have trimmed it to size, you should not really need to trim it again.
Thank you so much for trying out the new Aurora snooker tip.

[sanman]

Hi,

The first laminated tip introduced into the US was the Moori tips from Japan. To understand the benefits of laminated tips, and why laminated tips are manufactured they way they are today, we need to look at the history and how laminated tips have become so popular.

When laminated tips were first introduced into the US from Japan, they created a big buzz. Before then most tips were made with water Buffalo hide and although they came in many forms they basically did not last very long and they all had the problem of deformation and consistency.

H Moori started using layers of pigskin with very good glue and excellent compressing technique to create a tip which basically never de-laminates, with very little mushrooming over time.

It was very revolutionary. The biggest advantages that players and cue makers noticed back in those early days were the durability and the consistency that they could not find on any other tips.

Most US pool players seemed to prefer the firmer and harder hit provided by the laminated tip. They felt that they could get more spin with this tip (probably because the shape of the tip stays more round and consistent over time), and this tip lasted much longer.

It created a big rave in the US among cue makers and players. It was not easy to get because H Moori would not export directly to the end customers outside of Japan, so most people had to buy from cue makers and agents, who usually got theirs through another agent and so on, making the tips very expensive to buy for end users.

Although a lot of people liked Moori tips (1st generation) they complained that it was a bit too hard and that chalk did not stay on very well.

Soon, Moori came out with a second generation, which was a bit softer, with different harness to choose from, and was supposed to hold chalk a bit better.

2 nd generation Moori tips were going for $40 USD at a time back in those days. It was the most expensive tip to have.

I believe he reduced the number of layers and used a slightly lighter coloured leather, which suggested to me that he had changed how the leather was treated on his second generation tips.

A lot of companies were copying Moori tips making their own brand of laminated tips--but nothing came close to the consistency and durability of Moori.

Moori M was the most popular tips but they still did not hold chalk very well. A lot of player had to use a tool called a tip pik to create little pores on the surface for the tip to hold chalk.

The problem of hardness vs durability with laminated tips is that if they do not press the layers very well the layers might separate; however, if they press the layers too much, then the tip would become very hard to hold chalk. It is therefore very difficult to create a good "soft" laminated tip.

From the beginning, the biggest selling points of Moori tips have been its ability to hold its shape over time (which in turns allows the player to feel that he can impart more spin on the ball because the doom shape is retained better), and how consistent they are from tip to tip. All the layers are pretty even, of more or less the same firmness, and are very predictable and consistent from tip to tip.

Pool players in the US hit their shots harder so a harder tip is preferred. As they hit the ball harder the tip would deform faster, so durability is a big concern. Moori addressed these issues when he created his tips. It has been very well received by players and has been copied by many companies since its introduction in the US many years ago.

By the time Moori changed to the current blister package in a blue box, there were many laminated tips on the market, and pro snooker player were also starting to try out laminated tips.

However, almost all these companies focused on making their tips very durable and consistent, as that was how Moori started his laminated tips fever in the US in the first place. They are very concerned about delamination and mushrooming of their tips, so they try to put many layers on their tips to hold their shape, and press them very hard to make sure they don't delaminate.

Moori tips are almost like a standard that people would use to measure other tips against. It is therefore only natural that other companies would try very hard to make their tips as durable and lamination-resistant as possible--just like a Moori.

Going back to the original question, I would say laminated tip has the advantage of not only being more durable and consistent but the layers can each compress and re-coil upon impact, which is something a pressed tip cannot offer.

Also, no matter how good a pressed tip might feel at first, over time it is bound to feel harder--which is why a lot of players only like their one piece tip in a certain height, as once it gets too hard it totally loses its feel.

With a laminated tip, the impact is distributed by several layers so each layer is only absorbing part of the impact.

With the Aurora tips, we use thicker layers than those found on other laminated tips. The thicker and yet more elastic leather layers allow each layer in the tip to re-coil upon impact, giving the cue ball a bit more spring and hence a more responsive hit, which is something you cannot get from a one piece tip, as the tip compresses and re-coils as a whole unit.

Unlike other tip companies, I do not focus on making another Moori tip. I wanted to design a snooker tip for the game of snooker. Unless you are playing on a very slow table, you never really need to hit your shot as hard as a US 9 ball player needs to on a routine basis. So, it makes no sense to me to design a tip like a Moori for the game of snooker anyway.

In closing, other than the above mentioned benefits of laminated tips vs pressed tips, I believe that the Aurora snooker tip--due to its much lesser glue lines and the use of a more elastic leather--has the additional benefits of a more responsive hit (thicker and more elastic layers), a better feel (more leather contact), holds chalk better(lesser glue lines), and easier to install as you can use the whole tip without trimming and wasting any layers.

Thank you for your patience in finish reading my novel.

Hope this has answered your questions.

Thanks for the explanation

[ADR147]

i am pretty sure hideo moori was not the first to do it but he was the first to do it well! as i recall moori's tips first came to note in about 1993 in the far east and about 1994 in the usa - the same time as i first tried one for snooker! but for sure i had tried a couple of different laminated tips before and used one on my cue in the hustler club in newcastle in 1991.

[poolqjunkie]

i am pretty sure hideo moori was not the first to do it but he was the first to do it well! as i recall moori's tips first came to note in about 1993 in the far east and about 1994 in the usa - the same time as i first tried one for snooker! but for sure i had tried a couple of different laminated tips before and used one on my cue in the hustler club in newcastle in 1991.

I dont remember the year exactly but it was in the early 90's I think that Moori tips started to become THE tip to have. May be there were some other small companies (in other parts of the world) attempting to make some laminated tips before that but none of them was ever good enough to become popular.
Do you remember the brand name of the ones you tried in 1991?
I remember the first batch of Moori I got was quite different, wish I had a picture. If memories servces me correctly, they were darker, higher, and I believe had more layers.
At one point, he also offered a grade called P which stood for "power"--it was his hardest tip but never caught on.
I have a Japanese billiard magazine with a featured article on Hideo Moori and I had a friend translated it for me. Hideo Moori is a very decent 9 ball player and was quite active on the pro tour in Japan. According to the article, he was credited as being the first (at least in Japan) to come up with the idea of laminated tip and prefected the technology in producing them. His operation is very small and he treats tip making as an art form.
What was your forst impression when you tried Moori for the very first time? Who in the UK was selling them back then?

[ADR147]

I dont remember the year exactly but it was in the early 90's I think that Moori tips started to become THE tip to have. May be there were some other small companies (in other parts of the world) attempting to make some laminated tips before that but none of them was ever good enough to become popular.
Do you remember the brand name of the ones you tried in 1991?
I remember the first batch of Moori I got was quite different, wish I had a picture. If memories servces me correctly, they were darker, higher, and I believe had more layers.
At one point, he also offered a grade called P which stood for "power"--it was his hardest tip but never caught on.
I have a Japanese billiard magazine with a featured article on Hideo Moori and I had a friend translated it for me. Hideo Moori is a very decent 9 ball player and was quite active on the pro tour in Japan. According to the article, he was credited as being the first (at least in Japan) to come up with the idea of laminated tip and prefected the technology in producing them. His operation is very small and he treats tip making as an art form.
What was your forst impression when you tried Moori for the very first time? Who in the UK was selling them back then?

i forget but i do remember fitting them with a chisel! nobody in the uk sold them - i was the first person in the uk to sell laminated tips.

[poolqjunkie]

i forget but i do remember fitting them with a chisel! nobody in the uk sold them - i was the first person in the uk to sell laminated tips.

And was Moori the first brand you were selling?

I know back then it was very hard to get Moori tips because he was not really interested in selling overseas. If memories serve me correctly, it was Joe Gold from Chicago who first introduced Moori to the USA. He was selling lots of his cues (Cognoscenti cues) to Japan back then, and came across Moori tips while in Japan. Becase he was such a famous cue maker and had a great network, Moori gained lots of exposure very quickly among cue collectors and cue makers.

During tournaments, cue repairmen used to charge USD$40 for a Moori tip installed and they had line ups!

[ADR147]

i can't even remember but i don't think so - they were very thick tips like 10mm thick.

[poolqjunkie]

I see. Back then I remember Moori was really the only one that everyone wanted, then there were other companies trying to make laminated tips. There were also fake Mooris from Taiwan and China.
It has been a long time since I first lay my hand on a first generation Moori tip. I remember it took me forever to shape the tip because it was just really thick and hard.
I asked myself, when I first saw a Moori, why couldn't they make it thinner???? LOL

[poolqjunkie]

Please kindly post your honest feedback here for other members to read once you have fully tested out your new Aurora snooker tip.
Thank you for all the feedback posted so far.

[BoBnoGG!n]

Im not personally testing the tip. im givin it to my mate, whos a very good player to try out n review. will get bak to u soon mate