Bowling Ball Surface Maintenance Schedule
If you wish to follow a simple
bowling ball surface maintenance schedule, then kindly check out information this article addresses regarding bowling ball coverstock maintenance and how to protect your investment in your equipment. This article is based upon excerpts from previously posted bowlingball.com articles located in the BowlVersity section of our site intended to help you gather insight into keeping the coverstock of your bowling ball ready to go at scheduled intervals. Credit is also given to Storm and Brunswick for providing publicly accessible information regarding bowling ball surface maintenance.
Normally, bowlers will randomly visit a pro shop and decide to clean, texture and/or polish their
bowling ball equipment with no predetermined coverstock maintenance strategies. It is recommended that in order to get the best results from your bowling balls, you should follow a
bowling ball surface maintenance schedule and enjoy increased consistency in your bowling ball motion provided by your local pro shop professional.
Here is a simple chart alerting you when to perform surface maintenance to your bowling ball equipment:
1. Re-polish shiny bowling balls and scuff dull bowling balls after ten games (10) of bowling...
2. Scuff and re-polish shiny bowling balls after 30 games (30) of bowling...
3. Full resurface is needed and finger inserts should be replaced after 60 games (60) of bowling...
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for the next interval of 60 games of bowling (60)...
Next, here are some useful combinations to prepare the coverstock of your
bowling balls to match with various lane oil conditions provided courtesy of Storm Products, Inc:
500-grit: This reaction causes the ball to read extremely early. This usually only works well on extremely heavy patterns or very direct angles by speed dominate players.
360, 1000-grit: This reaction gives the ball more length than 500 alone, but still has a significant ability to generate friction in heavier oil. This works well on heavy patterns with fresh back-ends.
500, 2000-grit: This reaction is a very good benchmark reaction as the ball has enough topography to still generate friction in medium to light oil, but not enough to cause the ball to read too early in most cases. This finish delays the hook transition, allowing for a strong entry angle.
500, 4000-grit: This reaction works extremely well on multiple patterns, giving the ball easy length through the heads, a subtle but noticeable mid-lane reaction, and an enormous amount of friction at the end of the pattern. This finish can generate some of the strongest entry angles possible on fresh patterns, but may start to skid too far as the pattern carries downlane.
Here are a few tips on preparing the coverstock of your bowling ball equipment courtesy of Brunswick:
1. To reduce oil absorption, clean your ball coverstock with a
ball cleaner after each use.
2. If you think your ball has lost some of its “out of the box” reaction, restore the ball to its
original factory finish. This is especially important for balls that are highly sanded or polished. Sand to 400 grit and then use a high-gloss bowling ball polish to restore the original factory finish on high-gloss polish balls. Sand to 220 grit, then use a high grit texture polish to restore the original factory finish on rough buff balls. For dull balls, wet-sand with the abrasive.
3. If there is a visible track on your ball ask your pro shop to refinish the ball using a Resurfacing System or similar resurfacing machine to remove the track and restore the ball to its original factory finish. The service is available, for a fee, at many pro shops. Consult with your local pro shop professional to prepare the ball surfaces to match with local lane conditions.
4. If your ball has more than 50 games on it, you may be able to increase mid-lane and backend hooking action by removing oil from the coverstock. Remove the oil from the ball by cleaning it with cleaner or rejuvenating substance or visit your pro shop to have it warmed in a "
rejuvenator" or "
revivor" type device, like the
Pyramid Phoenix Personal Ball Revivor. * Brunswick testing has shown by combining the restoration of the factory finish, and the resurfacing of the track and oil removal, your bowling ball can maintain its original “out of the box” reaction for hundreds of games. CAUTION: Do not use a home oven to remove oil. Temperatures cannot be adequately controlled and the ball may crack.
Note: Oil-soaked balls tend to track less in the oil and respond less to the dry boards on the lane. If you are matching-up using an oil-soaked ball on wet/dry or broken down lane conditions, removing the oil from the ball will significantly change your match-up and possibly create undesirable over-reactions.
Of course, there are multiple methods, resurfacing mediums, and grits available on the market, all of which will yield slightly different results causing a ball to read earlier or later, with more or less on the back-ends. As a final recommendation, whenever making surface adjustments, our research has shown that the lowest grit should be applied with more pressure, but for a shorter duration. The higher grits should be applied with less pressure, but for a longer time. This will have the desired effect of creating strong surface deviations to displace oil, but will also round the edges, peaks, and valleys enough to get the desired amount of skid."
Knowing more about ball surface restoration strategies such as the above mentioned techniques provided by Storm and by Brunswick coupled with a regular surface maintenance schedule will help you keep your equipment surfaces prepared to match best to the lane oil conditions you frequently encounter in competition.
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Perfect Scale® rating feature which provides comparisons of the latest bowling balls in today’s market against our sophisticated rating scale system. The Perfect Scale® can be easily accessed from our home page by clicking on the button and then browsing the information provided at the Perfect Scale®. Our goal is to simply make it easier for you to compare products and feel confident in your purchase selection process.
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