Ok, I slipped a disk last week and so I am out of commission for a while. So, I have been on this site alot to learn more bout bowling and all of the new bowling balls. I want to buy a new bowling ball, but I want to make a wise choice; bowling balls are soo expensive and I want to get the right one for me.
Some balls that are rated mid-performance, are being reviewed as high performance and hooking a lot. Other balls rated as high performance are not hooking. Skid snap rated are rolling. Rolling rated balls are being reviewed as skid snappy and the list goes on.
To make an educated choice of what ball to buy, I feel I must reason out the “SCIENCE†behind the bowling ball. What makes it hook or not hook. I am talking about the physical properties of the ball. I am ignoring stuff like a bowlers release/revs/ball speed. Also, you must consider some basic properties of a bowling lane.
To make things simple, lets consider two types of bowling balls; a softer ball and a harder ball. That softer ball being a solid and the harder ball being a pearl ball. Lets also simplify the lane condition, a simple pattern of oil down to a certain length and then much less oil, lets say 15 feet before the pins. It could be 20, 25 and so forth does not really matter. Also, I am not going to address the core, just cover stocks. The reason, it is going to just take me forever to explain my reasoning about coverstocks. I might follow up with a discussion on cores when I have more time.
Basically, the ball reaches the end of the oil, hits the dry and trys to make some type of turn, if the ball is not rolling end over end. Lets only consider a ball that is not rolling end over end. Now, why does it seem that pearl balls hook sharp and most solids do not hook as sharp? I am going to try to reason this out.
A pearl ball is harder/shinier in surface. A solid is duller in surface. Analogous to a tire, the pearl is filled up with air and the solid is a flatter tire. The pearl ball has actually less of the ball touching the lane surface and the solid has more of the ball touching the lane surface. How can I prove this. Not 100% sure. Maybe, by the amount of oil a bowling ball absorbes the oil? Lets assume I am correct.
Now, lets consider a go-cart or driving lawn mower or anything that does not have power steering but is steered by tires. When the tires have good air pressure, it is easier to turn the steering wheel than when the tires are deflated. It takes much more energy to turn the wheels when the tires are flat and the odds are you turn that steering wheel slower as well. Why? When the tires are flat, there is more surface of the tire hitting the road and thus more friction to deal with.
To me, when the ball reaches the end of the oil and hits the “drier†part of the lane, this is when the steering wheel is turned. The pearl turns easier/harder and the solid will turn slower with much more energy required. This is why solids lose energy/turning power at the end.
Now, lets consider RA values. This is the amount of peaks and valleys, or I think of them as claws/fingers, on the surface of the bowling ball; coverstock. The more of them, the more traction the ball has. The RA is very small and measured microscopically. Therefore, the RA value adds in the amount of turn/quickness of turn for the pearl. The pearl has less surface on the lane; claws on the lane but not too many to slow it down. For the solid, I think it helps its traction in oil but slows down its turn in the dry or requires an even more amount of energy to make that turn. The solid has too many claws to react fast enough.
The reason for reasoning this out, because some of these ball reviews do not make sense to me. Lets say the same Ball company rates a Ball at X and another Ball at X + Y, then is it possible that the X hooks more at the end? Yes, depending upon the coverstock. From my explanation, a solid may hook less at the end of the lane even if its rating is more than another ball.
But, it makes no sense to me, if you take balls from the same manufacturer (X, X + 1), with nearly the same coverstock (ie. Solid with the same coverstock) and similar core numbers and claim X outhooks X+1 by leaps and bounds. Makes no sense to me. They should have a similar reaction.
Comments? Do I make sense?
