They're using this new epoxy cover which is a completely different material ever put on a bowling ball.  Brian Voss threw a testball using the cover at Bowl Expo and it was in the left gutter at 45 feet AFTER they triple oiled the lanes and the Triumph TNT went straight as a dart.  The ball is a light blue/white swirl which looks very reminiscent of the old Omega and get this....

....it comes with a "built in" resurface meter.  Now that seems a little far fetched and complex but it's really not.  The ball literally soaks in oil.  You can drop a few drops of lane oil on the ball and watch it dissolve into the coverstock.  What I mean by built in resurfacing meter is that the more you use it the darker color of blue your track will get.  After about 100 games, the track will become a noticable dark navy blue than the rest of the ball, then you have to resurface it.  After the fresh resurfacing you will get about another 50-75 games out of it, then after that one about 30-50 games, then after that it's done, you'll have to get a new one.  

There's no word on when they will release this ball or coverstock concept, but if they do, no center will be able to create a colume big enough to warrant this ball.  Even if they did, every other ball would become obsolete and there would be a race between companies to copy this type of material.

What does everyone think about this?
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-DP3

Old newz...

http://www.ballreviews.com/Forum/Replies.asp?TopicID=56606&ForumID=1&CategoryID=2

They still have to figure out production issues involving the initial cure time of the coverstock.  Until they do, who cares?
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two of nine

Doug, could you please elaborate on why you think this ball needs to be made?  

It would seem to me that this ball will make it even easier for the revless to compete even though they have a complete lack of technique.  Once again making the margin of error even greater while not really making the reward for quality shots higher.  

You are definatley one of the more educated bowling guys out there, so I'm interested as to why you think this will be good for bowling.  No doubt that it would be a boost for the AMF name, but I don't think it will help bowling.
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The clock on the wall says 3 O'Clock...last call...for Alcohol!

I have also witnessed this technology, and i use alot of the AMF300 balls.The ball i saw was a dark purple. I spoke with dale for an extended period of time. Him and Mike the west coast sales cordinator, talked about this ball.

it has it's good and bad sides. dale mentioned they had a product very similar to ebonite's hook again to aid in extending this ball's useful life.

this ball does indeed create alot of friction. but ask dale mentioned, this was just one example of how far they can go within the spectrum of hook. they can re formulate the epoxy to hook less, but still have the oil consumption qualities.

From what i have heard is that this has been sitting on Columbia industries R&D dept for nearly 10 years. And it was basically explained to me that with this ball, core means nothing. the example i saw had i believe just pancake core inside if i am correct. I also noted that the ball had no noticable oil on it when it returned on the ball return.

Of course i asked a friend that deals with epoxy and things of this nature. This ball would have of course a long curing time and tempurature would be extremely important. A ball like this would be very sensitive to tempurature, heat and cold would be deadly for this ball, because epoxy would expand and contract much more than resin would. so this ball would be very very prone to cracking. So this ball may not be a good idea in colder climates, or even in hotter climates as well.

Hence this ball would be incredibley expensive, if it really did take so long to develop i think columbia and AMF300 would like to recap some of the money pumped into this project. Plus if it does indeed become more prone to cracking, warrenty issues and replacement balls might be forcing per ball expense even higher.

This could be the next Quantum Helix, and Double Helix. the extreme high end market, setting a new bench mark price that could even make most Lane1 fanatics saying, whoa lil pricey.
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Timothy @Juniors Pro-Shop
Montreal, Quebec.