Bowling Ball Care: Sanding

If you are an avid bowler throwing a hook, have you ever noticed that after a year or so your ball does not seem to hook as much? Do you start coming into the pocket light and leave a lot of 10 pins? Have you ever just gone out and bought a new ball because of it? Let me share with you a tip to get some more games out of that ball. Sand it!

Now, no, I don't mean go out with sand paper and sand the ball down! Take it to your pro shop and tell them you would like your ball sanded. They will place it in a ball spinner and sand the ball down to roughen it up a bit. They may also put a compound on the ball to help even further. This will get your ball reaction back and have you throwing more strikes in no time at all!

After 50 games or so the ball has been thrown so many times that the cover soaks up a lot of oil. If you are not cleaning your ball after each game or wiping the oil off the surface after each throw than this will cause a problem with how much your ball will want to hook over a long period of time. The sanding process as stated before will help you get the ball reaction back and have it cutting through the oil, grip the lane and get back into the pocket! If the sanding does not do quite what you wanted it to, it may be a good idea to get the ball totally resurfaced. This process gets the ball to a factory condition, or to any other type of finish you want on it from rough to polished. A simple polish or sanding will cost around $5 where a total refinish will cost around $25.

I have just got back two of my balls, one polished and one sanded and it has made a world of difference with the amount of bite I had on the sanded ball! I can play my old lines again and not worry if the ball is going to come back or not!

My next review will go over how to get a ball finished so that it will not hook as much!

Check my other articles out on bowling ball care and maintenance to get the most out of your investment.