My local house is on a cost-cutting parade so they decided a few weeks ago NOT to oil the lanes for the weekends. However, a bunch of us have gotten together on Sunday mornings for years, to roll a few games, just for fun and to pick on each other.

Now, with some of the lanes not having any oil applied since before leagues Friday night (some lanes at the high end of the house get oiled on Saturday, but we cannot always get assigned to those lanes) we are faced with almost ZERO oil on Sunday mornings.

Therefore, any amount of rotation applied to almost any ball causes it to start up at about the arrows! I am too old to throw it hard enough to keep it right of the head pin and so are most of my friends. I could throw my spare ball (Storm Ice, the old blue one) but that does not seem to be the answer.

Perhaps something else?

Your thoughts?

Synthetic lanes, by the way.

1. In what way is the Storm Ice not the answer?

2. Most times oil is pushed way to the outside by open play bowlers. Have you tried going down the 2/3 board area (NOT swinging it out to the 2/3 board area)? with plastic or highly polished urethane.

I have faced dry lane conditions where plastic balls rolled out just past the arrows, while playing the 4th arrow. That is D-R-Y!!

WELL,

 You probably aren't going to get anything less "hooky" that that Ice Storm you've got.

 Take it and put a high grit finish on it (4000 abralon or finer), then apply a coat of polish that also has "slip" agents in it.

 Charlest is very good with the surface adjustments issue, and can probably name a couple of good polishes that fit that category.

Once you have taken a plastic ball to 4000 grit, the next step is a White Trizact pad (which is in the range to 6000 - 8000 grit), followed by almost any polish. That is as fine as I have ever taken any ball.

Actually what you do after taking your ball of choice to the white trizact pad is to use a product called Monkey Jam Axle Polish....this is a gritted polish that I use right after the white trizact pad , before I add any other type of polish on the ball such as track's delayed reaction which has a slip agent in it.   The4 white trizact Pad is .3 mircons, but the particles that make up monkey jam axle polish are less than .05 microns which is equivalent to approx. 60,000 grit (American standard grit) ...after the axle polish if I want to go further with the cover I use delayed reaction....and weather I use delayed reaction or not, after the axle polish , the last thing I do to the ball is I apply Go-shine polish to it--this is the slickest stuff I have ever seen, and the best part of that product is that it is not waxed based so it won't clog up the pores. The first time I tried it , my balance hand literally slipped off the bowling ball because that stuff is sooo slick..but it works.

Brad

Quote from: Zanatos1914 on March 02, 2014, 09:46:25 PM

This sounds like AMF house -- Take your money to center that cares about lane care... Urethane is the best thing choice.. 

This would be my suggestion.  Find a place that respects bowlers a little more.

And to just be clear, AMF doesn't tell its centers to not oil outside of leagues.  It is entirely a GM idea.  AMF may dangle incentives in front of their noses for meeting particular numbers, but there is no reason to not oil the lanes.  It isn't THAT expensive to run the lanes.

Any alterations you make to a ball will be fine and dandy the first few frames or maybe even first game or two.  But realize this, you will probably have to do something to the ball every week to get anything better than what you already have in the Mix.

Let me make sure I understand what you are saying...
Oiling lanes is not expensive and its the GMs idea to run league bowlers out of the center...
Since the union with AMF and bowlerama allot of changes have taken place...
League bowlers arent the primary concern anymore and they are cutting corners and league lineage has increased...

We had a discussion about the Bowlerama topic a whie back...

I understand the costs of oiling the lanes and have seen costs of cleaner and oil lately (not the duster cloth).  And I would love to see what one center says is the cost per lane and a breakdown of such.  Is it pennies?  Of course not.  But you can't tell me it costs much more than $1 a lane (not counting labor, but the mechanic is already there anyway). 

And the reason I say it is up to the local GM is because not all AMF centers are doing the same thing.  Just because one center isn't oiling doesn't mean they all aren't.  Each GM has an operating cost he is trying to stay under.  By cutting costs any way he can he may incur a small bonus for himself.  I am guessing this GM isn't a bowler or doesn't operate the center like a bowler might. 

I have managed bowling centers before and have worked for AMF before the merger.  Yes, there are a lot of idiotic rules at AMF, but there is no rule for AMF centers to not oil the lanes on the weekends.  It is the decision of the GM to not oil.

I understand the costs of oiling the lanes and have seen costs of cleaner and oil lately (not the duster cloth).  And I would love to see what one center says is the cost per lane and a breakdown of such.  Is it pennies?  Of course not.  But you can't tell me it costs much more than $1 a lane (not counting labor, but the mechanic is already there anyway). 

And the reason I say it is up to the local GM is because not all AMF centers are doing the same thing.  Just because one center isn't oiling doesn't mean they all aren't.  Each GM has an operating cost he is trying to stay under.  By cutting costs any way he can he may incur a small bonus for himself.  I am guessing this GM isn't a bowler or doesn't operate the center like a bowler might. 

I have managed bowling centers before and have worked for AMF before the merger.  Yes, there are a lot of idiotic rules at AMF, but there is no rule for AMF centers to not oil the lanes on the weekends.  It is the decision of the GM to not oil.

My center had college teams coming in for a tournament a few weeks back.
The team that was coming in has a specific shot that gets put out for them.
The person who was oiling (Who can get pretty lazy at times), decided he didn't feel like oiling the lanes twice, so he put the college teams shot down. In the morning. Before 2 leagues bowled on them.
So, not only did my league have to deal with a pattern thats not at all what we're used to, but the tournament played on burned up lanes at the end of the day.

Doesn't surprise me that another center doesn't oil on weekends after seeing what ours does at times.

As for the original post, whats wrong with your spare ball?
Have you actually tried it on those conditions? I would do that first before buying anything new, just for the hell of it.

Sounds like the way it is here.  When one of the "high and mighty" bowlers has an off night, the complaining begins.  Unfortunately, we have a center employee on our team.  And on some nights, he will be told numerous times how messed up the lanes are and he needs to do something about it or they will quit.  He has nothing to do with the lane conditions and yet he still fields complaints. 

And to bring this around full circle, this is why I suggest people to not bowl on conditions that are beyond the expected range of what they will see.  Why bowl on crap if you will never see that condition in a competitive environment?  I am not saying to NOT bowl on difficult left overs.  But there is a distinct difference between bowling after 2 days of open play and bowling after 2 leagues have bowled.  The OP wants to change one of his balls for the sole purpose of appeasing this one condition.  A condition he most likely will never see.  This change may even make the ball unplayable on conditions he normally would use it on.

Basketball players don't practice on 11 foot goals.  Baseball players don't practice on softball fields.  Football players don't practice with peewee footballs.  So why should bowlers bowl on 2 day left over crap?