Bowling ball types

[andrae1982]

I understand that bowling balls fall under different categories like plastic,urethane, reactive, or particle. But what makes a bowling ball a pearl ball. What effects does it have? Usually I see a ball like a black widow and then a black widow pearl. Could someone help me understand these differences? Thanks.

[VIXIV]

And I quote...

 

quote:PEARL/PEARLIZED
A type of ball surface that has an additive (mica) in the coverstock that stiffens the cover and causes a later reaction for the given coverstock base.
Benefits: good for when the heads are drier, good when you have to get deep due to increased recovery in the backend.

from the Unofficial BallReviews FAQ

Plus, it's a visible difference. Here's a crappy pic of my Sure Fire, which has a solid/pearl hybrid coverstock.

See?

The sparkly portions are pearl and the solid portions are, well, solid.

Hope this helped.

[NicholasE]

^^^^ thats a good example with the ball. But not all pearls are sparkly. One noticable difference is the pearl version of a ball is typically going to be shiny given that the coverstock hasn't been dulled down. A solid can be shiny if polished but an OOB solid is going to be dull and never any sparkles.

Best thing is not to be able to point them out but understand the differences in reactions that the Solid VS Pearl has. The solid generally is going to roll up sooner and made for more oil as to where at Pearl is going to go long and generally going to be a Skid/snap reaction but thats just general.

There are so many things that you can do to adjust the coverstock to do like one or the other so really there is no solid answer on reactions because that is something thats easily adjusted.
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Throwing hambones since 2005.

[shelley]

Really, there's plastic, urethane (not many), and reactive.  Reactives, when you get down to it, are just urethanes with a reactive additive.  Particles balls are just reactives with a particle additive.  The particles might be rubber, silica, glass, even industrial grade diamond.

Pearls are just reactives with a pearl additive (mica).

In most cases, you can visually tell the difference between a pearl and a solid.  Pearls are kinda sparkly, they have an iridescent sheen to them.  Solids are flat.  That doesn't hold all the time, though, and some of the newest colors look pearlized but aren't.  The Big-R-Bang and World Class Reactive have a definite pearl look but are supposedly solids.  I had a Black Sparkle Power Groove and it looked, well, sparkly, but I believe it was a solid.

SH

[andrae1982]

Thanks for all the replies. That helps me understand alot better.