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* Please Avoid: Please avoid leaving your ball in the boot of your car, or your garage, as high variances in temperature may crack either the core or the surface of the ball. Bowling balls are made of different parts; the shell, weight block, the core, and those parts are of different hardness's that heat up and cool at different times. Therefore when the ball gets too hot and then cools down, separation can occur.
Also a ball when it gets hot can create sweating, and the oil sweating out of the ball can make the ball difficult to hold. If the ball gets too cold it will act similar to ice melting, be aware that when you first start to bowl it will travel down the lane longer and not hook as much, and as the shell heats up it will grip more. If you take the ball home, bring the ball into the house, you will be amazed as to how often cars get stolen or broken into in your driveway.
ILOVEOLIVIA said:It makes me cringe when I hear that someone has passed on the "ball dnking/submerging" method to clean their equipment.
When I first heard of the dunking proceedure, I contacted both Ebonite and Brunswick to give me the correct advice on cleaning and maintainence of bowling balls.
Here we go again....
I have gone through this in some detail on the alt.sport.bowling newsgroup, 4-5 years ago now. I'll Google up a link later, but for now - When I was working at Griffith uni, I baked some 'oil' out of an SD73 by sitting it on a plate in the sun. Did an analysis on a state of the art gas chromatograph/mass spec combo of the slop out of the ball and a sample of lane oil, and they were totally different chemically. Further, the slop matched the resin additives in a Columbia patent for a reactive coverstock.
What bleeds out is not oil. It is resin. It didn't even have detectable amounts of oil in it. Which surprised me, because up until then I thought the resin bleed story was garbage.
So, why? Resin balls are thermoset urethane, and continue to cure for (in some cases) years, very slightly shrinking as they do. This, plus the effect of surface heat (which accelerates the surface cure) and the continual pressure of the ball on the lane forces too much plasticiser to the surface of the ball. A VERY fine film is needed to enhance friction with dry lane - too much acts as lubricant. It is a shear effect. Remove the excess, fix the ball. All the hook again system does is do it really well. Well maintained balls that are washed and resurfaced regularly, last for many, many games more than poorly maintained gear, and are much easier to rejuvinate when necessary.
On resurfacing, more often is better, usually. A ball given a very light sand and repolish (for shiny stuff) every 2-3 months will outlast a ball that is used for a year then needs 120 grit to get the track out by 2 or 3 to 1 and perform better as well.
You CANNOT remove all the resin from a ball in anything like normal use. Resin coverstocks, according to the Columbia patent, are from 5% to 25% resin additive. Say 100 grams to half a kilo for a 15lb ball. That's a lot of resin to bleed out. - you'd need a hi-vacuum oven or a week in a dioxane bath (that did work, incidentally) to get that much out.
A hot bath, once a month, works wonders. Hot water, hot enough that you can barely stand to put your hands in, a good squirt of Dawn dishwashing liquid, let soak for 20 minutes, scrub the glop off under the water, let dry and polish. I have a seven year old sage quantum with the label just about worn off that still hooks as much as it did when I got it. I don't even bother covering up the thumb and finger holes, just let them drain afterwards, and I have never had a ball crack in the bath. YMMV.
FWIW, i think that the reduction in 'hit' (as opposed to 'hook') in older balls, could be due to microfracturing of the coverstock over time. No evidence either for or against, just the opinion of a polymer chemist (me). Need a microtome and a phase contrast microscope to find out - anyone got one handy?
The best polish I have ever found for reactive balls, BTW, is Brasso. (Edit - I mean for polishing on a spinner) Brilliant stuff. For particle balls, diatomaceous earth (swimming pool filter powder) on a sponge worked great on the few I have tried it with. It's slower than Trizact, but worked as well IMHO and is miles cheaper. Just use it as the last 'grit'.
One day I'll get a life.