I have two questions about "stuff" that I have heard.

First, do modern urethanes react more like reactive resin balls in regards to oil absorption, or more like old school urethane.  To the best of my knowledge old generation urethanes balls did not soak up much if any oil.  So if you were to throw older urethane balls, then would track onto the backend.  The newer urethanes have cores in them and will (when appropriately drilled), continue to flare on the back end.  So do modern Urethanes tend to cause carry-down or behave more like reactive resin balls that tend to soak up the oil?

Second, I hear the term, pushing oil around on occasion.  As in a right handed bowler who is throwing left to right, will "push" the oil to the outside.   Do reactive resin balls, with all their oil absorption ability, and flare actually push oil around?  How does this happen?  Is this like a tire going through a puddle where water would be splashed (or displaced) to either side of the tire?  When I see articles that show the 3-D changes in oil volume, I never see places where they have more oil at the end of the 3 game squad than they do at the start of the squad.  Usually they show a giant valley where oil has been absorbed off the lanes.  So what exactly is going on?

as you will see in the article and my post, no one saide anything about no carrydown with plastic and urethane. in the MODERN game with resin covers and dynamic cores there is no such thing as carrydown affecting ball motion. if you are bowling with a bunch of plastic and urethane balls such as in younger youth, mixed, senior leagues or short pattern tournaments where more people use urethane and plastic regularly you WILL see carrydown and it WILL affect ball motion.

again in the modern game of bowling there is a neglible amount of carry down that does not affect ball motion and it would be fair to say there is no such thing as carrydown

This is only in my house, but 90+% of the leagues are youth, mixed, women or senior.  There is only one mens league.  So for the majority, there may be an issue in play depending on the ratio of resin vs non-resin balls in use.  I know it is not an issue with the mens league.

I learned on lacquer with rubber balls.  Never saw anything that acted like carrydown in those days.  First carrydown I saw was  when hard urethane finishes replaced the lacquer.  Bowlers had a fit trying to play the carrydown transitions.  Lanemen started oiling shorter, loading up the heads, and stripping the back ends all the time.  In hindsight that was the worst thing to do.  One local lane man who was a good friend of mine even consulted with the tour lane men on how to put playable shots out.  He oiled to about 20 feet, but buffed out to 42 feet ( with a heavy crown ).  He had the most playable shot in town except for houses that totally walled them up off the corner.   Indeed, that was the start of the wet dry top hat conditions that still predominate today.  Without some type of heavy crown most of the scratch bowlers had a terrible time dealing with the carry down environment that was totally new to us.   

There are many factors here, but the pattern used in the article had a total volume of 22 mls, which is not a lot...  The article was also published nearly eight years ago.  Not exactly last month.

By comparison, the center I manage has a THS pattern with a total volume of 29 mls (40 ft), and I see carrydown regularly as I inspect the back-ends after various leagues.  Today's lane oils are also "more slick" than ever.

Our senior leagues have the most carrydown, followed by the women's leagues, the mixed leagues, and finally, the more competitive in that order.  It's a direct result of the amount of polyester (and even rubber) balls AND where they're thrown.  Seniors and women's leagues roll more of the harder shell balls through the middle of the pattern (where the higher concentration of lane conditioner exists), and more frequently.

Therefore "myth of carrydown" depends...  It's very real for some of us, and I won't deny what my eyes can see.

I too, learned to bowl back in the days of lacquer finishes and rubber/polyester balls.
I also worked in a local bowling center in those days. I used to be responsible for
conditioning the lanes. We used to oil the lanes with an old Brunswick hand-held
spray applicator. Around 1969-70, we switched to using the Brunswick B-90 lane
oiling machine. In those days the combination of porous lacquer finishes plus the fact that we applied much less (oil) volume than what we see today, resulted in extremely
negligible oil carrydown. In short, oil carrydown was pretty much a non-issue.
In fact, we used to strip the entire lanes (clean) at most, only twice a week.
If we did that today, there would be a ton of carrydown oil downlane.

At the start of the 1973 fall league season, our center replaced lacquer with much harder polyurethane finishes. The results were dramatic. Suddenly, carrydown
became a factor. It was as if the lane surfaces were replaced with oil-slick concrete.
Scores plummeted and numerous lane maintenance problems arose overnight, including an epidemic of out-of-ranges and  oil-soaked ball return wheels.  The harder surfaces, combined with the hard rubber and plastic balls acted like snow
plows--pushing the oil downlane. The response to this resulted in the birth of the
"soaker" balls, shorter oil patterns and widespread lane blocking. All of these
had a huge impact on how the game is being played today. It has resulted in
the equipment revolution we see now. Balls with exotic cores and coverstocks
and lanes dressed with oil ratios of 10:1 (and greater) becoming the norm these
today.

In response to this, today's lane oils are "slicker" and they are being applied
in much greater volumes than in the lacquer days--in some cases over 4 times
the volumes used back then. Granted, the higher performance balls today
flare more and absorb more oil than balls back then, but not nearly enough
to overcome the oil volumes applied nowadays. Carrydown is still there, although less
than in the past--but it still exists and it still is a scoring factor. Throw in the use of plastic house and spare balls and carrydown can actually be worse than it was in the in the immediate post-lacquer era.

Great story, Avabob. I had an undrilled Shore D still in the original box that I
just parted with recently. I had it for almost 40 years. It still had the little yellow
sticker attached to it that stated that the ball was not under warranty (due to its
very soft cover). About 4 years ago, a durometer reading consistently measured
it in the low to mid 60's on the scale, despite having sat in an unheated garage for
many years. I remember drilling them and how "gummy" in texture they were.
In fact, we called them "gumballs"-lol.

Speaking of the White Dots that preceded the Shore Ds, they indeed, performed
better than the majority of the rubbers balls that were in production at the time.
For those of us who are old enough to remember, it was the great Don "Koko" Johnson that put Columbia 300 on the map with his Columbia (White Dot) Caramel.
Prior to this, many of the guys around my neck of the woods were reluctant to
go to polyester because they were not yet convinced that they would be better performers than the traditional black rubber balls. Still others felt that the colorful plastic balls were too effeminate for their macho image.

Bowling, like practically everything else, has come a long, long way!



 

One thing to consider when asking if Urethane or Polyester balls create carry down is: are the balls drilled with a zero flare or a high flare layout?

In the old days drilling patterns were not necessarily created to increase flare potential and many of the early balls had no dynamic core. So when you rolled a urethane ball down the lane it had one oil line it kept rolling over again and again and the oil would be carried down like the ball was a paint roller.

But a modern urethane ball with a dynamic core drilled with a high flare layout will allow each oil line to have its own stripe on the ball and they will only meet at the center of the bow tie. So actually the high flare urethane ball is removing oil from the lane! And when it comes back and you wipe that oil off your ball it is gone from the lane forever. So in effect a urethane ball can take just as much oil off the lane as a reactive ball.

I have personally used my Hammer Widow spare ball with a super high flare layout as a strike ball and after a game or so I successfully gouged out a dry line up the lane with it.

Carry down does still occur with any ball type, but high flare layouts will always minimize this effect and wiping the ball after each throw will assure any oil it picks up will not get back on the lane.

Quote from: BMFOBR on May 18, 2015, 08:32:07 PM

Joe Slowinsky has an interesting article on resin balls and oil movement.  Says there is no such thing as carrydown.  Its all oil depletion.  Google it and decide for yourself.  Makes sense.  When a reactive ball hits dry, no matter where on the lane, it loses energy.   It strikes me as odd that so many people say the lanes they bowl on are dry as a bone.  Yet they'll talk about carrydown.  Like I said, google it and decide for yourself what is happening.

The ball doesn't lose energy.

KE = 1/2 * M * V^2 + 1/2 * I * W^2

KE = Kinetic Energy
M = Mass
V = Velocity
I = Moment of Inertia
W = Rev Rate per second

The force from friction causing the ball to lose velocity also causes the ball to increase rev rate.

If the balls linear velocity is slower than its tangential velocity, then the rev rate will decrease as it encounters friction.  Though there aren't many bowlers who can achieve those conditions.