the orca puck is made from good material, they certainly got that right.

however it still does have the bobbling characteristics associated with that bevelled edge. thats what the text refers to, but i hardly see how modifying the inner would really solve that... it's a problem of the shape of the outer.

the orca is slightly better to pass than the natal puck but the natal one does sit a little better and bobbles less.

probably the best combination of all the features of various pucks would be the flat squarish outer shape of a nz or dutch or old SA puck, with orca or aussie puck material as the plates top and bottom and an oreo or simms style band of softer material around the puck for grip.

possibly indenting the middle of top and bottom faces to lift the injection points from the tiles and make both surfaces consistent could also be helpful... it might also improve tile speed by reducing surface area (but keeping contact area as wide as possible to prevent bobble)... some people have thought that indenting the puck in the middle can help with puck rotation and stability by putting the weight more on the outside of the rim but i'm not sure theres much proof of that being a factor.


something we havent touched on before, but ice hockey pucks have the same problems with design that we do to a certain extent... an icehockey puck with bevelled edges would cause havoc and never sit flat. they have been designing their pucks for far longer than we have and put a lot more money into it... end result, whats simple works, leave it a flat disc! maybe we need to take a leaf from their book also and keep it simple?

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