What are some of the reasons and benefits of polishing a ball up vs. sanding a ball "up"?

I recently tried an experiement and had 2 hook monsters sanded up just to see if they matched up with my style, and man... they both got good length and NO backend at all, they reminded me of a regular ol' spare ball! Now, polished up, these balls get good length and a bigger backend reaction!

So why did these balls lose their backend when I sanded them up? I figured by doing this, that it would give me length and a TON of backend, and also that these balls would cut through carrydown better, but that was not the case! These balls, when polished, cut through the carrydown alot better than when sanded up! Why???


Is this common or did I do something wrong?



Thanks!

Bob,

I think you're forgetting one major factor in polishes. Well, maybe you didn't but you did not mention it. The vast majority of polishes have some type of grit in them which does change the overall grit of the surface, in addition topolishing the ball. Thus, if you sand the ball to 800, and then polish it, the ball will no longer be at 800 grit, but will be much higher depending on the polish's internal grit level and how hard you polished the ball. It could wind up at 1000 grit polished or it could be as high as 3000 grit polished.

There are some polishes like Black Magic which claim to have no grit in them; they say they just put a shine on the call without changing the surface. How they do this, I cannot say. But almost all other polishes will change the grit.

Now, if you are careful, starting at 400 grit and then polishing the ball will get you more grab at the backend with greater hook at the backend and slightly earlier start to the hook, THAN if you sanded to 1500 grit, and then polished the ball. The same ball drilled the same, but sanded to 1500 grit should have greater length and less backend and less overall hook, BUT a lot depends on how the ball is polished.

Yes, you will see a different ball read on the lanes between sanding up and polishing up.  When sanding up, you alter the grain of the coverstock, but the pores of the ball remain somewhat open.  Also, sanding up doesn't really round off the edges of the grain....think of it as sawteeth or threads, where the finer surface has less distance between the top of the tooth (or thread crown) versus the bottom of the tooth (or thread root...here I go again, getting technical on you).  Now polishing a ball tends to round off the sharp point of the tooth, and it tends to push some of the material down into the pores of the ball.  You still have an irregular surface, but the peaks and valleys (that were very distinct with the sawteeth) are now more rippled, with the tops and bottoms rounded off.  Basically, you could look at a sanded surface as /\/\/\/\/\, where a polished surface would be more like ~~~~~~~~~ (exaggerating the sizes somewhat on the characters here, but maybe you get the picture).  If you were to look at an oscilloscope display, the sanded surface would look like a "sawtooth" waveform, where the polished surface would resemble a "sine" waveform.....the sine waveform may be nearly as high as the sawtooth, but the sine waveform has rounded peaks and rounded valleys.

Since a sharp tooth like surface (sanded) generates more friction than a sine wave surface (polished), surface, the sanded surface is going to grab the lane in small increments.  The polished surface actually puts more surface area of the ball down onto the lane itself.  In oil, the sanded ball will cut through the oil and grab the lane, but the ball loses some of its energy while grabbing earlier on the lane....the polished ball hydroplanes in the oil.  On the dry, the sanded ball has already expended part of its energy of rotation, so there is less reaction on the backend.....this gives the sanded ball more of a continuous arc reaction on the lane.  A polished ball however has hydroplaned on the oil, and still has virtually all of the energy of rotation when it hits the backend.  When the polished ball catches dry backends, there is more contact patch between the ball and the lane surface, which gives a more violent reaction.

Basically, the analogy of the car racing tires does come very close to this.....wrinkle wall drag slicks hook up extremely hard on the dry asphalt, but they aren't worth a darn in water.  Treaded tires hook up better in water, but they lose part of their bite under heavier acceleration, due to less contact patch with the asphalt.

Anyway, maybe you get the idea.  A sanded ball still has more bite all the time, where a polished ball has less bite in oil, and more bite in the dry.  Polishing a ball rounds off the peaks and valleys.

a ball that has a dull finish, and that can be anywhere from 80 grit to 5,000 grit wetsanded, burns energy all the way down the lane. a ball that is polished clears the heads easily and then releases the stored energy on the drier backend. both work and have their place depending upon the bowler and his style.