So on the Brad and Kyle channel at the Oklahoma stop of the 2023 PBA Tour Brad posted a final video for the event talking about the tournament and at the end of the video post about his Storm Pitch Black testing soft.

He stated he drilled it at the event off of the truck, bowled around 9 games with it, then was chosen at random for having the ball tested in which it was illegal/soft. He then advised since he is no longer on the competition committee he felt he would be able to talk about how they had concerns with the urethane being too soft and trying to fix this for the tour with these new rules was the goal.

He was advised that even though the Pitch Black tested soft they are still allowed to use it for the remainder of the season. The PBA is only gathering data and he may have said sharing it with USBC I do not remember exactly on that part.

He did say the USBCs findings matched what they were seeing of once a urethane balls gets a few games on it, the oil softens it up, it test 3-4 points softer but then never gets any softer after that.

That was the summary of the video ending where he talked about urethane and it is now been deleted.

Doesn't seem to make sense that a ball that absorbs so little is absorbing enough oil to be 3-4 points softer in only a few games. It would make sense if the ball was too soft before drilling to still be soft. Hank has said and others confirm bowling balls get harder, continue to cure. Urethane should be no different.

Lot of unknowns with the new urethane it seems these days.

If bowling balls continue to harden this doesnt make sense. It took two hours to soften some urethane in heavy chemicals and 9 games magically softens urethane but not reactive equipment according to what is being shared from USBC or the PBA?

Im sure there are several reasons the video got pulled.

Im guessing the ball was soft before drilling.
Im guessing no one is sure why they are soft or if they do they arent wanting people to know theres a problem.
The PBA is fine with them being soft for the season was probably information they weren't wanting shared either.

Still we are talking about low diff "urethane" bowling balls being an issue. It is almost comical

I am not saying that Faball then or Brunswick now made the hammers intentionally too soft, nor do I think storm did this intentionally. 

but, at what point does the PBA either change the hardness rules to allow all these soft urethane balls or just ban urethane since every manufacturer seems to have issues complying with the hardness rule.

So does this come back to what many have said years ago that manufacturers cannot make urethane? Something is vastly different from todays urethane and what was produced in the 80s and 90s that they continue to react differently and hook far more then original urethane. Also that they are softer. Real urethane is definitely not soft.

Is there an issue in production with not letting the balls sit long enough before releasing them? Notice you cannot buy the new Purple Hammer even though they showed several pictures of the new balls being finished in production and being ready to ship months ago. January 27th on FB was a picture saying how they are ready to ship to your local shop but PBA players are the only ones who seem to have them and many at the US Open were saying how they were lucky to get some in time.

Quote from: ignitebowling on February 20, 2023, 12:51:13 PM

If bowling balls continue to harden this doesnt make sense. It took two hours to soften some urethane in heavy chemicals and 9 games magically softens urethane but not reactive equipment according to what is being shared from USBC or the PBA?

The way it's been explained to me ...

1) Resin balls actually continue to harden; modern urethane balls go the other way. Maybe it's the plasticizers in the resin balls? I don't know, but the composition is not equal.

2) Modern urethane balls are made differently than urethane of 30+ years ago, and may have been built with this softening in mind. The older urethane in your garage will probably still punch within 2-3 hardness of its original construction; modern urethane self-softens because it was meant to do that.

What these tests are exposing is the manufacturing process behind modern urethane -- which was designed to create a product that self-softened but (allegedly) stayed within tolerance -- is flawed, or overdone, and needs to be corrected. If it can't be corrected, urethane in general will likely be banned from the tour. Basically, the urethane ball manufacturers got caught with their hands in the cookie jar and now the process has to be corrected.

Jess

At some point they just need to do away with urethane.  Nobody really needs them for leagues and seems like there are issues each year for the past few regarding hardness.  Either that or just shut down production on all urethanes until they get the hardness issue resolved.  I get why pros like to use them but they are the best at what they do and the tour as a whole wasnt struggling before urethane came back out. 

So does this come back to what many have said years ago that manufacturers cannot make urethane? Something is vastly different from todays urethane and what was produced in the 80s and 90s that they continue to react differently and hook far more then original urethane. Also that they are softer. Real urethane is definitely not soft.

Is there an issue in production with not letting the balls sit long enough before releasing them? Notice you cannot buy the new Purple Hammer even though they showed several pictures of the new balls being finished in production and being ready to ship months ago. January 27th on FB was a picture saying how they are ready to ship to your local shop but PBA players are the only ones who seem to have them and many at the US Open were saying how they were lucky to get some in time.

Beats me but I've got some old Angle LDs and Visionary Warlocks and Slate Blue Gargoyles and if you loaded those things into cannons you could probably sink the U.S.S. Nimitz. I'm not sure what happened or when it happened. What I do know is I've seen a couple of Purple Hammers specifically that had a very "soft" feel and appearance, different enough to make me think the base formulation was something else entirely than traditional urethane.

The "why" it happened is easier to answer: If you soften up a bowling ball to around, say, 68D-70D (and especially lower), the footprint on the lanes gets wider. It's like underinflating a tire on purpose. As the tire deflates, it hunkers down on its contact patch to the point you effectively have a wider tire. Wider = more control.

I would hate to see all urethane get banned because I think there are legitimate uses for it in the modern game (personally, I use urethane pearls/blends for spare shooting, as they are more consistent than polyester for me) but if those balls are going to change/soften even without the bowler himself having to soak it or modify it in any way, they're either going to have to be banned, or we're going to have to ditch the durometer standard outright, for all equipment, and just let it go where it goes.

The other issue is that when the USBC soft-banned six Storm balls and outright banned the Spectre, Storm had to replace that equipment. Some of those balls were low-volume products and not everyone even went for a replacement. It still supposedly cost the company seven figures and bowling ball companies aren't much more than mom-and-pop operations compared to other industries. Now think of Brunswick having to replace every Purple Hammer in existence. It could very well kill the company.

Jess

According to Stu and Barnes newest video the video shared by Brad had a lot of bad information in it but I wasn't sitting through that hour plus video to find out because they are all over the place when talking on the video.

They do mention that the balls were getting soft in 9 to 10 shots not games and stopped after about 3 games. Which isn't far from what Brad said. He mentioned his ball specifically had about 9 games on it when tested.

They also mentioned the hardness for urethane back in the day was much higher closer to 80, which is why older urethanes are still  much harder today. So it would seem going back to the manufacturers making the hardness much higher at production to offset the drop should/could work. Maybe that is what Hammer is waiting on to see with the newest Purple.

It also would appear urethane issues across all brands making them is widely known by USBC, PBA, and the manufacturers. Which doesn't seem to be a big concern.

Quote from: ignitebowling on February 21, 2023, 07:17:54 AM

So does this come back to what many have said years ago that manufacturers cannot make urethane? Something is vastly different from todays urethane and what was produced in the 80s and 90s that they continue to react differently and hook far more then original urethane. Also that they are softer. Real urethane is definitely not soft.

Is there an issue in production with not letting the balls sit long enough before releasing them? Notice you cannot buy the new Purple Hammer even though they showed several pictures of the new balls being finished in production and being ready to ship months ago. January 27th on FB was a picture saying how they are ready to ship to your local shop but PBA players are the only ones who seem to have them and many at the US Open were saying how they were lucky to get some in time.

Beats me but I've got some old Angle LDs and Visionary Warlocks and Slate Blue Gargoyles and if you loaded those things into cannons you could probably sink the U.S.S. Nimitz. I'm not sure what happened or when it happened. What I do know is I've seen a couple of Purple Hammers specifically that had a very "soft" feel and appearance, different enough to make me think the base formulation was something else entirely than traditional urethane.

The "why" it happened is easier to answer: If you soften up a bowling ball to around, say, 68D-70D (and especially lower), the footprint on the lanes gets wider. It's like underinflating a tire on purpose. As the tire deflates, it hunkers down on its contact patch to the point you effectively have a wider tire. Wider = more control.

I would hate to see all urethane get banned because I think there are legitimate uses for it in the modern game (personally, I use urethane pearls/blends for spare shooting, as they are more consistent than polyester for me) but if those balls are going to change/soften even without the bowler himself having to soak it or modify it in any way, they're either going to have to be banned, or we're going to have to ditch the durometer standard outright, for all equipment, and just let it go where it goes.

The other issue is that when the USBC soft-banned six Storm balls and outright banned the Spectre, Storm had to replace that equipment. Some of those balls were low-volume products and not everyone even went for a replacement. It still supposedly cost the company seven figures and bowling ball companies aren't much more than mom-and-pop operations compared to other industries. Now think of Brunswick having to replace every Purple Hammer in existence. It could very well kill the company.

Jess