Bowling alleys are noisy places, full of the sounds of bowling balls rolling down the lanes and crashing into pins. It might seem like the repeated impacts against the hardwood of the lane surface and the bowling pins would take its toll on a bowling ball, but bowling balls are heavy and durable. Even though they see a lot of rugged play, the biggest threat to a bowling ball’s longevity is actually oil.
While oil from the lanes won’t cause the ball harm, it can make the ball harder to control, worsening your game. If you’ve ever noticed that your bowling ball seems less responsive after you’ve played a few dozen games with it, what you’ve really noticed is the accumulation of oil and dirt in the coverstock of your ball.
In order for a bowler to have precise control over how the ball travels down the lane, a certain amount of friction is needed. Friction allows the ball’s surface to grip the lane and gives the ball the ability to hook. In the early 90s, bowling balls began to be created with a variant of polyurethane called “reactive resin.” In order to maintain the ball’s friction, a reactive resin ball would absorb oil, instead of staying on the surface.
Over time, however, the pores in the reactive resin can be saturated, or get clogged by tiny particles of dirt. When this happens, the ball can no longer maintain the proper amount of friction needed to control it well, causing its performance to dip. To avoid this happening to your bowling ball, regular care and occasional deep cleanings are needed.
Custom Bowling Towels
It isn’t hard to see where a bowling ball has gotten oily. If you’re a consistent bowler, you’ve probably already noticed that your ball has one or more rings of oil around it, especially after you’ve been bowling on an oily lane. These rings are called your track, and it’s where your ball actually touches the lane as it rolls. If you’ve bowled with the same ball for a long time, you might be able to see your track all the time, and not just right after you’ve bowled. This means that in the area of the track, your ball has already absorbed as much oil as it can hold, and now the surface is getting shiny.
Rather than letting the track get absorbed into the ball, yours should be wiping your ball off with a soft, microfiber towel after every turn to remove all the oil build-up that you can see. Then, after every game (or session), spritz the ball with a degreasing cleanser—there are many that are formulated specifically for bowling balls—and wipe down the entire surface of the ball. These two simple steps will drastically slow the rate at which your ball absorbs oil and will extend its playable life considerably.
Why Use Bowling Towels
What about if your ball is already showing signs of being saturated with oil? If your track is permanently visible, or you just feel like the ball isn’t as easy to control or hook as it was twenty or thirty games ago, all hope is not lost for your bowling ball. Bowling pro shops have techniques to get oil out of reactive resin bowling balls using a special oven that will bake the oil out of the pores.
This oven will heat the ball to a hot enough temperature to loosen the oil and allow it to seep back out without damaging the ball. Your kitchen oven gets too hot and doesn’t distribute heat evenly enough, so this is something that only professionals with specialty equipment should do. Afterward, your ball should be like new.
Order Custom Bowling Towels
Here at Rally Towels, we have a great selection of soft towels that are perfect for keeping a bowling ball in top shape. Like all our towels, our bowling towels are fully customizable and can be printed with the logo or name of your bowling team.
If you own a bowling alley, you can encourage your patrons to care for the house balls by having bowling towels customized with the name or logo of your bowling alley available for them to use between frames and after each game. While it’s most common for golf towels, if you order your bowling towels with a hook and grommet, you could even have handy towels secured to every ball return and ball rack, without having to worry that they will get lost or stolen.
Whether you’re in the bowling industry, a pro bowler, on a local bowling team, or simply a bowling enthusiast, you need a good towel at the ready to care for your bowling balls. Check out our great selection today!
