I had just de-oiled (5 hrs) and resurfaced back to OOB my teammate's neglected Virtual Gravity.  He was impressed with how well it reacted again, except for complaining about the belt marks it now seemed to get.  Well, he shows up last night and struggled badly, with little ball movement, and his ball looked like a shiny marble.  After talking with him, turns out that he had decided to use lacquer thinner on it to clean it last week, and I'm guessing that it probably dissolved the surface enough to smooth the surface out.  So now I'm redoing it again.  Hope he learned a lesson, and hopefully it didn't do any permanent damage to the coverstock.

You mean I might be able to make my weak ball weaker?  I need that for my Thursday league!

Some might be surprised at the intense chemical reactions that occur when the coverstock is poured. The amount of exotherms created is very high and is also the reason non-employees should not be in the area that balls are being poured.

I am honestly surprised that we have not heard or read on people being injured from being exposed to the chemical reactions by accident that work for the ball companies.

Saying that, who knows exactly what chemical is in the cover and yes, different chems will mix differently providing different chem reactions with the cover causing an effect most would not want to occur. That is why we should use an approved product only when cleaning the ball. 

I have a teammate who is cleaning his ball with acetone all the time and then he complains each week why his ball is not reacting like he thinks it should.  Is the acetone actually melting the peaks on the surface creating what was described above using paint thinner? 

I have a teammate who is cleaning his ball with acetone all the time and then he complains each week why his ball is not reacting like he thinks it should.  Is the acetone actually melting the peaks on the surface creating what was described above using paint thinner? 

Yes, it is and it's absorbable by human flesh. He should wear gloves as he destroys his ball.

As for where the balls are poured after the Mexican reference, I believe why most/all of the clear balls are poured overseas is because the companies can't get clearance for the chemical reactions to create a clear ball here. Visionary's clear balls were produced in Korea.

I wonder where Track's Flaming T spare ball was made.

480$.........Somebody been sniffing some thing. ......

I have a teammate who is cleaning his ball with acetone all the time and then he complains each week why his ball is not reacting like he thinks it should.  Is the acetone actually melting the peaks on the surface creating what was described above using paint thinner? 

Exactly what I'm thinking.  After explaining to my teammate to use isopropyl alcohol if he doesn't want to spend (too cheap) the money to buy an approved ball cleaner, if he does it again, he is on his own next time.