Creating the Difference

[gbabione]

I joined CTD as a regional staff member. I have not used any of the offered benefits as of yet. Not being one to post on social media, I thought I'd give it a try anyway. I have posted twice on their members only Facebook page. I thought this may be a good place to post my thoughts also.
I am 56 years old and have been bowling since I was 14. I have never been one to keep up maintenance on my equipment. During the urethane days, I only carried a solid and a pearl. I would change the surface of the solid a lot by wet-sanding and polish with grit on a homemade ball spinner. I usually kept my Black U Dot at 400 grit. When resin came out, the only thing I did was repolish. As the newer resins came out and then the particles, I never had any luck playing with the surfaces. Once I changed them or tried to bring them to factory finish, the balls always ended up unusable. Abralon pads did seem to make it easier to change the surface, but they seemed to wear out very quickly. Then of course you had no way of knowing what grit you were using anymore. When I found the process of using the multiple grit process to get back to factory finish, it was a lot of work and if the pads weren't new, you didn't get the factory finish anyway. With the CTD Trucut pads, a lot of that work has been eliminated. They are supposed to be truer grit and last longer. Without a surface scanner I may never know when they do get worn, but hopefully ball reaction will tell me.
I first used the Trucut pads by hand using the conditioner. I started bowling in a new center this year. It has the most oil I've seen in 30 years. I tried using the 500 grit on my Gravity Evolved expecting it to be like 400 grit wet sand. It looked more like 180 grit. So I hit it with the 1000. It looked better. The first practice shot it bit as soon as it hit the lane so I couldn't use it. The following week I used the 2000 then light 3000 on a spinner on the Gravity and also used the 3000 on a Phase 2. The Gravity still dug in. The Phase worked good there, but my Monday night league in another house, it burned up by 40'. My Monday league I am playing 20 to 8 with an Emerald and the new house I am playing 6 to 3 with the Phase and barely getting it to roll. I will be playing with surfaces a lot for the new house. The following week I did the Phase again with 2000 then 3000. It looks and reacts more like I expect it too. I also used the 3000 on the Gravity. I still don't like it's reaction. Next I'll be trying the 2000.
I have used a few ball cleaners and have not really noticed any difference afterwards. Unless there was something noticeable on the surface. Any household cleaner would work on that. I recently had some belt scuffs on a couple balls. I tried Life After Death cleaner without and then with the TruCut Scuff Mark Remover. Nothing was removed. I then tried Genesis Evolution Maxx and Tac-up cleaners. Even after letting each cleaner sit on the surface, none of them got anything off. I finally just used the Evolution since the bottle was almost empty, and rubbed very hard. Before this, I had never used a cleaner on these balls. The towel I was using never got dirty.
So my first impression of the CTD products is, don't use the Trucut pads without a spinner and water and the cleaner is no better than any others.