[smitty007]

For the life of me I don't understand why the textured ceramics are more slippery than smooth?! It does not seem like producing textured ceramics would serve any purpose if there is not an advantage to them like not being as slick. Do I just have a bad set of textured or what. Anyone...

[Diablo_Rojos]

Originally Posted by smitty007

For the life of me I don't understand why the textured ceramics are more slippery than smooth?! It does not seem like producing textured ceramics would serve any purpose if there is not an advantage to them like not being as slick. Do I just have a bad set of textured or what. Anyone...

Yeah the textured chips are a little slicker chip to chip due to the decreased surface area, but the textured chip feel alot better in your hand. The chip's artwork may be slightly less sharp than the smooth.

[smitty007]

Originally Posted by Diablo_Rojos

Yeah the textured chips are a little slicker chip to chip due to the decreased surface area, but the textured chip feel alot better in your hand. The chip's artwork may be slightly less sharp than the smooth.

Do you think with use the textured chips will get more or less slick?

[Diablo_Rojos]

Originally Posted by smitty007

Do you think with use the textured chips will get more or less slick?

That's a good question. I would imagine the textured chip would get less slick over time as skin dirt and oil fill the gaps along with normal wear.

[smitty007]

Originally Posted by Diablo_Rojos

That's a good question. I would imagine the textured chip would get less slick over time as skin dirt and oil fill the gaps along with normal wear.

Which chips do you prefer, textured or smooth?

[Diablo_Rojos]

Man I'm on the fence the with one. I really like the way the textured ABCs feel, but I'm not overly fond of the fuzzier art work. I think it's pretty much a wash between sunfly's and ABC's I've got a scan of the smooth and textured chips side by side.
I'll post it in a few mins

[smitty007]

I have some textured ABC's and they are a lot less slick than the textured sunfly's I have. I don't understand though, because I had some textured Bellagio's and they were great. They were not as slick as the textured WSOP samples I have from sunfly.

[Diablo_Rojos]

I don't have an answer for you on that one.
Maybe Mr Chips or Joe will chime in on the differences.
here's a pic of some ABC ceramics with smooth and textured

[smitty007]

Thanks Diablo, great pic

[Matt]

Again, in my experience, textured chips become slick after some use because the pyramid bumps in the surface texture becomes "polished down" which creates a slick surface with little friction. The smooth surface is totally different and does not seem to suffer from this at all. Also, the smooth chips look better in my opinion. They have a very nice finish that looks like velved. I hope this helps

EDIT: Here's a picture to illustrate the difference --> http://www.mrchip.eu/graphics/surface_texture.jpg (1,59 Mb)

The bumps on the textured chips could be compared to the sawtooths on a saw. They will go blunt quickly if you saw into something hard. The bumps on smooth chips could be compared to the bumps on sandpaper. It can withstand huge amounts of abuse and still create friction.

But the real reason for the textured chips becoming slick after some wear is this: The bumps are too close too each other! This means that there is room for the bumps on one chip to slide down between the bumps on another chip when the bumps are still sharp. But when the bumps are worn down a little bit there is insufficient room for the bumps on one chip to slide down between bumps on another chip. This creates a slick surface that actually creates less friction than a "completely" flat chip would do (as the area of contact is actually smaller and you loose the suction effect). So unfortunally, a textured chip creates great friction when it's new but it doesn't take much wear before this friction is greatly reduced. In short - would only the bumps have been further apart the textured chips wouldn't suffer from this problem. We will of course fix this in the future.

I created these .gif's to illustrate what I'm saying. This in an exaggeration but will hopefully explain the phenomena:


(1) In this picture, the bumps on the chips (shown in black) are still sharp. See how the bumps will grab a hold of each other if you drop the top chip onto the bottom one? -->



(2) In this picture the bumps have become a little bit worn and therefore more flat (not as sharp). See how the bumps on the top chip can no longer slide down between the bumps on the bottom chip? -->


(Explaination: The white area is the space/air between the top and bottom chip before dropping the top chip onto the bottom one. The two chips are shown in black and what you are looking at is a super close-up of the surface texture.)


Matt