Hi everybody!

[snookah]

Hi. I'm glad to be a member of this forum and i love playing biljards and snooker! But, I got a few questions: What is snooker balls made of? And what is the diameter of the different snooker balls? These question are for a school project, so please write politely! Thanks for serious answers.

[Robert602]

Welcome to the forums

Snooker balls are made from something called 'super crystalate' which is a kind of hard chemical resin. (Phenol formaldahyde resin, if your school project is chemistry).

As for the size, snooker balls have always been 2 1/16 ", or 52.5mm. They are available in various smaller sizes for smaller tables, including 2", 1 7/8", 1.5", 1", etc, but the official size is 2 1/16 ". That's what you'll find at clubs and in the professional game.

A bit of history:
Before snooker was invented the standard material for billiard balls was ivory, two or three balls could be made per elephant tusk. Ivory continued to be used in professional billiards and even in some 22 ball snooker sets, even when the clubs and amateur game was using the newly invented replacement 'bonzoline'. Bonzoline was heavier than ivory, but was more consistent and played better. As far as I know, it was made from ground up shin bones from cows. Doesn't sound too environmental I know, but obviously it was a lot better than using ivory (not to mention cheaper). Unfortunately the top professionals, used to ivory and generally quite traditionalist, resisted the change to the artificial material.

Thankfully, when crystalate balls came in they were adopted into snooker almost immediately. They were resin based, like bakelite, lighter than anything that had come before and therefore easier to manipulate around the table. Super crystalate is a modification that came into the professional game in 1974, and was even lighter and harder than cystalate. That's the formula that's still used today.

Hope that helps.

[snookah]

Thanks you so much! You really helped me there!!!

[RaNeN]

I knew a little about the balls.....but now I know more!

[Mitsuko]

Welcome

Question from me in relation to the original question, how easy are the balls to break?

[Robert602]

Scientifically, I have no idea, but I have a set of comparatively soft supapro balls at home (they get superficial scratches and lose their shine easily). The nearest thing I've come to breaking one is when I miscued and sent the cueball over a railing on a 20ft plummet onto a stone floor. The result was the tiniest of chips.

I've got a set of aramith super crystalate pool balls (closer to pro quality) as well that I've put through much worse and they're still shiny and new looking. I've never heard of balls being so much as chipped in the course of normal play, and I'd imagine it's near impossible unless you've got a cue action like a hyrdrolic ram.

In conclusion, they're bloody tough.