Factory Polishing

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pjape
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Factory Polishing

Post by pjape »

I just re-watched the video on bowling ball production at Storm. Check out the video at 5:06; does anyone know what material the polishing buffers are made of? What substance is used to do the polishing? I wonder if it's the same thing they sell to bowlers, or is it something totally different that's not commercially available. I'm kind of surprised at how fast the buffers are spinning.

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MegaMav
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Re: Factory Polishing

Post by MegaMav »

I am not surprised.
What you cannot see is the pressure used.
This is why factory surface is near impossible to duplicate.
High Pressure + High RPMs = High gloss.
Glenn
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Re: Factory Polishing

Post by Glenn »

To follow-up with what MegaMav said, these high-speed and high-pressure factory surfacing processes are the reason bowlers want to take that new ball and apply a surface that works for their game, and is reproducible by them. Mo Pinel has a YouTube video talking about this subject, and he said that you have to introduce an intermediate sanding step to achieve a result similar to what they can do at the factory. His example is the factory 500 grit plus compound where the bowler must use 500 / 2000 plus compound using the appropriate hand pressure to achieve a near-factory result.

As a side note, our local pro shop usually tells the bowler who buys one of these new bowling balls with the compound finish to go out an roll enough games with it to break it in (belt shine it). I believe that advice has resulted in many unhappy and frustrated bowlers (I know several of them myself).
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pjape
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Re: Factory Polishing

Post by pjape »

Glenn wrote:To follow-up with what MegaMav said, these high-speed and high-pressure factory surfacing processes are the reason bowlers want to take that new ball and apply a surface that works for their game, and is reproducible by them. Mo Pinel has a YouTube video talking about this subject, and he said that you have to introduce an intermediate sanding step to achieve a result similar to what they can do at the factory. His example is the factory 500 grit plus compound where the bowler must use 500 / 2000 plus compound using the appropriate hand pressure to achieve a near-factory result.

As a side note, our local pro shop usually tells the bowler who buys one of these new bowling balls with the compound finish to go out an roll enough games with it to break it in (belt shine it). I believe that advice has resulted in many unhappy and frustrated bowlers (I know several of them myself).
Makes me think that those who will alter the surface before they throw it one time might be on the right track. It's far easier to duplicate what we do to a ball than what the factory does.

I also wonder just how much variation there is with balls from the factory. I'm sure someone has checked this out. All one would have to do is take a few of the same exact ball, and check the surface on the Jayhawk for variation. I would expect there to be differences.

I need to search for that video by Mo on Youtube.
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