I live in the DC, MD, VA, area.....affectionately called the DMV! We are transitioning into our fall season and some wild stuff has been happening. Talked to my best friend this morning and he told me he had to change out a ball in his bag before going bowling, because it just cracked on him, the entire circumference of the ball!!

It was a Black Ops- Global ball. then I spoke with another friend and he said the very same thing happened to him. He had a Radical Ridiculous crack, and a DV8 Grudge crack all the way around.

So I go to my car, and.......amazing.....my Brunswick Vintage LT-48 cracked from the thumbhole, all the way around the ball, too!

Only thing that I can say is....the extreme variance in temps right now is creating these cracks. We are very hot in the midday, like mid 80's to low 90's, but then at night it drops down to about 50-60 degrees, kind of chilly and the balls can't keep up with the core expansion rates!!

A rare but wild occurrence to say the least!

Quote from: dmonroe814 on September 30, 2017, 07:17:13 AM

Heat and humidity changes, I can understand.  I had a C300 Scout with about 15 games on it.  Needed room in my bag, so I put the Scout in the closet.  It was a walk-in closet and the door wasn't closed, so it was the same temperature as the rest of the house.  2 days later, the ball cracked.

WOW! Just wow! Gotta have something to do with the newer chemical compositions of the covers as well, since these were all newer balls.

And yet, I have a  Brunswick Red Alert, that I've had re-drilled twice, in the same bag, and it does not even have cracks around the finger holes!! I bought that ball in 1992!!
Go figure.

Quote from: Jesse James on September 30, 2017, 11:33:47 AM

Quote from: dmonroe814 on September 30, 2017, 07:17:13 AM

Heat and humidity changes, I can understand.  I had a C300 Scout with about 15 games on it.  Needed room in my bag, so I put the Scout in the closet.  It was a walk-in closet and the door wasn't closed, so it was the same temperature as the rest of the house.  2 days later, the ball cracked.

WOW! Just wow! Gotta have something to do with the newer chemical compositions of the covers as well, since these were all newer balls.

And yet, I have a  Brunswick Red Alert, that I've had re-drilled twice, in the same bag, and it does not even have cracks around the finger holes!! I bought that ball in 1992!!
Go figure.

In the current (October) issue of BJI, there's a round table summary of 3 dfferent bowling technical people suggesting ways of preventing cracking.
Hank Boomershine of Roto-Grip/Storm strongly suggested my idea: keeping balls in their original plastic bags. He has an experiment running: storing balls on wooden and metal racks. He suggests that the wooden racks draw the water from balls allowing them to crack, while metal does not.
Check it out.

Quote from: HackJandy on September 30, 2017, 06:39:47 PM

Quote from: charlest on September 30, 2017, 03:09:28 PM

Quote from: Jesse James on September 30, 2017, 11:33:47 AM

Quote from: dmonroe814 on September 30, 2017, 07:17:13 AM

Heat and humidity changes, I can understand.  I had a C300 Scout with about 15 games on it.  Needed room in my bag, so I put the Scout in the closet.  It was a walk-in closet and the door wasn't closed, so it was the same temperature as the rest of the house.  2 days later, the ball cracked.

WOW! Just wow! Gotta have something to do with the newer chemical compositions of the covers as well, since these were all newer balls.

And yet, I have a  Brunswick Red Alert, that I've had re-drilled twice, in the same bag, and it does not even have cracks around the finger holes!! I bought that ball in 1992!!
Go figure.

In the current (October) issue of BJI, there's a round table summary of 3 dfferent bowling technical people suggesting ways of preventing cracking.
Hank Boomershine of Roto-Grip/Storm strongly suggested my idea: keeping balls in their original plastic bags. He has an experiment running: storing balls on wooden and metal racks. He suggests that the wooden racks draw the water from balls allowing them to crack, while metal does not.
Check it out.

The problem with keeping balls in plastic is it becomes a pain if use them even semi-frequently.  If I had to guess I would say its probably better to throw a ball once a month if possible than keep in plastic.  That said I have started storing some of my old urethane in plastic in ball boxes with a wash cloth folded up on the bottom in the garage.  Store a lot of my urethane on ball cups on a wooden Ikea floor shelf dealy in our bedroom closet (big luckily, edge to wife picking house lol) but also store my balls in a couple of ball totes one on floor and one on another Ikea floor shelf.   May not be good to store balls in totes and ball bags but I rotate them often and being a ball junkie store balls where I can lol.

I only store the ones not in rotation in the original plastic bags in their original boxes. The ones in occasional rotation I keep in ball cups on wooden shelves; a few (3-6)  I keep on an old rug in front of the wooden shelves. The ones in my bag I bring indoors and keep in my office near the garage door on the 1st floor of the house.

I've had 2 balls crack out of about 175 - 200 balls, for the 25 years or so that I have used this system. One cracked all the way around (A Sensor/C; it had sat in one place for about 8 years, untouched.) and one cracked around the finger holes.