Could chalkless tips be the future?

That's the opinion of Jayson Waller, who has recently taken on the role of UK licensed distributor for a new exciting product, called Grip Tip.

OnCue asked him more about the product and why he thinks it could be a big win...

The Grip Tip is a brand new product being promoted in Australia and is produced by a company called Spinster, who primarily make bespoke pool tables. 

I first stumbled across the product when I was visiting Oz and my brother-in-law took me to his snooker room. He asked me to try out the chalkless tip.

He handed me this cue with the Grip Tip on. I was interested in playing with it and it felt great. I had a better contact with the cue ball and it seemed to minimises the chances of a kick.

I said I was really interested and I told him I wanted to promote the product for the UK market. He arranged for the owner of Spinster to contact me and it's gone from there. I'm out and about, raising awareness and selling the product.

Spinster has been going for decades and they first through of the idea for the Grip Tip when some of their staff were in a bar and realised there was no chalk. It's the usual story. They would either have to play without chalk or go to another pub. It just came up in conversation that there could be a market for it.

Since I've bought it to the UK, we've had a lot of orders, but we're just starting really. We're trying to grow it quite organically.  The budget isn't there for advertising and marketing. That may be different next year, but at the moment, I'm relying on Facebook and Twitter pages.

The Grip Tip is available as a screw-on tip or to be glued on. They're selling on our site www.spinsterbilliards.co.uk, ebay and on Amazon. So far it's been slow, but positive.

The response I've had is phenomenal. A number of people seem to be thinking 'wow'. It's captured a few people's imaginations and from the feedback I've received, I believe it has a lot of potential in all cue sports.

It's exactly the same as playing with a normal cue without having to put chalk on. The contact is constantly there and miscuing disappears. It minimises kick-backs as well.

At the moment, the orders in the UK have mainly been from single customers buying them for personal use.

But in Australia it's been going on in Australia for about a year. It is doing very well there. It's already in their pubs and snooker halls and people are buying them at a good rate. A lot of people have them for their personal use in their own homes as well.

It's very difficult to in my role to get the product out there. Not a lot of people know that a chalkless cue exists. My aim is to make people aware that there's an option.

I believe the rest will take care of itself because I'm so confident in the product.

The product fills me with excite and intrigue, so if you're interested too, visit www.spinsterbilliards.co.uk or follow @jaysonwaller on Twitter.

**The views above are those of Jayson Waller from Spinster. OnCue has not published any verdict on the product**