BallReviews
Equipment Boards => Faball => Topic started by: Carolina Kingpin on March 11, 2003, 08:17:19 PM
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I have an original Blue Hammer, and an original Black Hammer, and I'm wondering what the avg rg and rg differential specs are. Anyone have an idea? I believe they have the same core, which is also shared with the Burgundy.
Thanks,
CK
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Carolina,
If you go to bowlingballreviews.com you should be able to find that info out. The site is down at the moment (1:25pm Wednesday) but it should give you everything you need when it's back up.
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The original Hammer ball specs aren't published anywhere to my knowledge, but it's pretty simple to figure out. The old Faball web site listed the orginal Hammer balls only as "Low RG". The new Blade, which is constructed using the original Hammer core with an added flip block, has an RG of 2.50. This is probably very close to the original Hammers. They were probably in the range of 2.49 to 2.51. The differential is probably at 0.020 or less, since no matter how you drilled them, it was extremely rare to see more than 1 to 1-1/2" of track flare. The old Faball site stated that the flare potential of the Blue & Burgundy hammers was 2-5", but I have trouble buying that number. I've never seen anything more than 1-1/2" of flare on any drilling. Has anyone else?
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Thanks guys. I'll check out BBR.com, Gene.
Randy,
I've never gotten more than about 1" of flare out of my Blue. I'm no monster when it comes to revs, but I can't imagine more than 2" out of this ball. I just got my Black, and expect the same. A guy on my team gets about 1" to maybe 1 1/2" out of his Black. I just got mine because of the way it's been working for him on some of our tougher conditions.
CK
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After a bit of searching over at BBR.com, all I found was "low rg" and "low diff" on the original Hammer core. The only ball with the original Hammer core that lists this much information is the Navy Reactive Hammer. The others (Black, Blue, Pink, Purple, Burgundy, Red, and the pearl cousins) just say "two-piece" core.
CK
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I have thrown every urethane Hammer except the pink. I have thrown the Navy Reactive as well, and none of them flared more than 1-1/2" that I could see. I suppose there could have been another 1/2 to 1" of 'unseen' flare once the ball left the oil, but 2 to 5" is a pipe dream - the engineers must have been snorting urethane dust when they wrote that!
Here's the info from Faballs old site on the Blue Hammer (and the Black, Red, Purple, Blue, Burgundy, Pink, Red Pearl, Blue Pearl, and Navy reactive ALL had this same core:
Hook Potential 1 – 20 ************************ 10
Back End 1 – 15 ***************************** 7
Radius of Gyration *************************** Low
Coefficient of Friction ********************** Medium
Hardness ( D-Scale Durometer ) *************** 75 - 78
Flare Potential ****************************** 2" - 5"
Lane Conditions (Oil) ************************ Medium to Heavy
Pin Distance from C.G. *********************** 0" - 4"
Top Weight Range ***************************** 2.0 to 4 ounces
Surface Finish ******************************* Factory Textured (600 Grit)
Ball Color *********************************** Blue
Pin Color************************************* Red
Engraving Fill ******************************* Red
Available Weights / Core Type **************** 13 - 16 lb. Hammer Core
10 - 12 lb. Elliptical
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Go for it. I wasn't the original poster of this topic, but I would be interested to see the results, being an old Hammerhead.
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And - for those of you Hammerheads that are 'research challenged', I will provide you with the 'holy grail' of hammer ratings - the 1994 Lichstein Guide, showing you the relative hook rating of each ball, durometer hardness range, and characteristics. Y'all owe me big time now!
(Sorry if it doesn't format well when you see it - it never shows up the same going from the text entry window to the regular screen).
Navy Reactive Hammer 14 Reactive(75-78)
2-Piece
New pancake weight block reactive enables ball to skid through
the heads easilly. Used on Tour by high revolution players and those with
slower speed for medium to light oil. NEW
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Burgundy Hammer 10 Urethane(76-79)
2-Piece
The urethane model features the high density core that made the
Hammer famous. It is the best non-reactive urethane in the Faball line
for heavy oil.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue Hammer 9 Urethane(76-76)
2-Piece
This ball is best for heavier oil conditions, but can be polished
up for less oily lanes. Jeff Phipps used the Blue Hammer exclusively to
average 247.89, a new league record.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Purple Hammer 9 Urethane(76-78)
2-Piece
Designed to get through dry heads, but has stronger back-end
reaction than Blue Hammer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Hammer 8 Urethane(78-80)
2-Piece
The original Hammer, still effective all-around from dry to oily
lanes. Polishes up well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Red Pearl Hammer 7 Urethane(77-78)
2-Piece
The Red Pearl goes as long as the Blue Pearl, but turns harder in
the back. A short oil ball.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue Pearl Hammer 7 Urethane(77-78)
2-Piece
Goes long with good back-end reaction. Good on short oil.
Original Hammer construction.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pink Hammer 3 Urethane(81-84)
2-Piece
Original Hammer construction, cover stock make this one best for
dry lane conditions.
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Now Hammerheads, it's time for a little secret. Y'all can pick your all time favorite hammer from the above list, but as good as they all were, there was another that was better. Yes - better than the Blue, better than the Black. The Red Razor! Since I finally managed to find my 15# Red Razor, I can spill the beans. The Red Razor got no respect - it was overshadowed by the release of zillions of reactive balls. But it is an awesome ball. It overcomes the one problem I had with the blue hammer - early hook. The high RG core in the Razor gets it through the heads pretty good, and the aggressive urethane cover gives it a monster back end - with no reactive flippiness. Here's a 1996 BTM review:
“There are balls and there are Balls, but the Red Razor was one of the true surprises of 1995. This is truly another of the unconventional urethanes. Although covered in a tweaked urethane name HPF (High Performance), this is one conventional that thinks it’s reactive. The Red Razor is a high RG ball that goes very long, but unlike the earlier generation of urethanes, this ball makes a definite snap to the pocket. It doesn’t hook in the class with the newer Brunswick, Track, Columbia, and Ebonite reactives, but nothing out there – reactive or not – throws more pins around than this Red Razor. And, one of the features that reactive snobs will like is that the Red Razor tracks like a reactive. No gentle arc to the hole. This one goes down and turns hard and nothing – oil or pins – stand in its way. If you are a bowler who is stuck on a condition where reactives keep you in serious trouble, but you don’t want to sacrifice power to gain control, give a good look at the Red Razor. This is Faball at its best. Control and power is tough to beat and this ball will give you both and on some of the trickiest conditions around. Appropriate for all but the oiliest conditions. Suitable for virtually anyone looking for a strong urethane ball.â€
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The BJI review from August 95 had some good stuff to say about this ball too- the 240 grit surface out of the box turned the corner on a 45 foot swamp that shined reactives went dead straight on in other reviews.
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Heres the review
The red razor made it to the shop on time and will get the full overview, but its faball brother, the berry razor, is still in deliverys twilight zone and will get a tech report later. As faballs latest mid-priced reactive(think this was a typo!), the red razor utilizes compound core, dual density technology in 13-16 lb models and single density 10-12pounders. This 2 pc dry sanded(240grit) ball sports yellow logos and can be drilled in any 2 pc manner is available with pin in or out. the core in the razor resembles a large ball with a thick puck. The razor offers a high moment of inertia which results in strong performance potential. The red razor features new HPF coverstock in a 7/8 inch thick shell. HPF is faballs newest hi-performance non reactive material. this cover generates a lot of friction and is an enhanced version from the blue'hooker' family. The shell can be tweaked to meet conditions, but plan to spend some time fine-tuning as the cover is pretty strong. We label drilled the red and went to the lanes with its box finish on 45ft. The razor rolled fairly early, moved strong on the back end and slapped the pins pretty hard. On the house shot the box surface gave us too much ball. With 600 cross hatch and rubbing compound, the ball had a little more length on 45ft, moved smoothly and hit with more authority. On a 32ft house shot, the shell change didn't alter the reaction much- still early and still very strong. With 4 polishing passes, the 45ft performance reacted as if it were on a house shot: good length strong back end and crisp hit and carry. On the 32ft shot, the polished red razor still needed some room, had good length, smooth continued back end and lively hit.
there you go then. 1 Red Razor review, almost word for word.
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stevo - doesn't count. The red reactive hammer had a different core. It had what was called a flare cap. It looks like this:
http://www.bowlingballreview.com/ball.asp?ballid=282
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Now I'm confused. Which ball were you determinating? The original Black Hammers didn't have any Mass Bias indicators. Heck, you could barely even see the pin.
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That is the CG. When you said "marked mass bias" I thought you were talking about a separate mark than the CG. Since they didn't start marking the 'mass bias' until the Offset series, I was confused. I also doubt the 2.6 figure. Looking at the design of the core and ball, it has to be in the 2.49 to 2.52 range. That was one of the strengths of those early hammers - they revved up easier than other manufacturer's 3-piece balls.
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Does the ball you tested have a normal topweight? Some of them that hit the market recently have real high topweights. I have one sitting in my garage undrilled that has a topweight of 6 oz. Would that affect your readings? Never having used a 'determinator', I haven't a clue. But - there's no way an orginal hammer exceeded 2.52 RG.
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I am not sure what the rg rating is on the Black Hammer which was the first Urethane that they made and was for medium to long oil and flared about 1 to 1-.5 inchs but you guys have forgotten about the solid red hammer which was the second Urethane hammer and it did flare 2 to 4 inches and it was my best ball for a very long time. I loved that darn ball but it was not produce very long because they had trouble with getting the red to grip the inter core,So they change it to the light blue ball ,but for some reason it just did not hit like the red ball.I drill most of the Hammer balls on the reactive side in the early days and the only one i like was the navy blue hammer.One last thing about the red hammer it was a dull ball but you could make it shine like a red apple and use it on short oil but you would have to take it to 2000 grit to make it shine like that.If you had crappy back ends like we did back in the day you could scoot brite it and man you could score like know one,Then the abc said you could not do that any longer but if you did it in the beginning of the night before league play it was good for the night.
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Now Fab Hammers NIB are stupid expensive. Wish would have gotten back into bowling a few years ago when you could get a Genesis Judge LE urethane which is an old school black hammer in everything but name for a reasonable price. Wow got me to respond to a 15 yo thread lol. As for flare considering The Crow only flares about 3" there is no way in hell any of the Faball flare more than 2" on THS.
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2.6 range and .020 range
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I asked Bill Hall who is credited with designing the original Blue and Burgundy Hammer. He did not have RG numbers but said the differential for both pieces were around .020. There is a notation in 123bowl.com the RG was probably in the 2.51 RG range.
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If this is any help,This is from the original hammer website
(which you can find using the Internet archive wayback machine)
https://web.archive.org/web/19990506080648/http://www.faball.com:80/nails.htm (https://web.archive.org/web/19990506080648/http://www.faball.com:80/nails.htm)
Technical Specifications - Blue Hammer
Hook Potential 1 – 20------10
Back End 1 – 15------7
Radius of Gyration------low
Coefficient of Friction------medium
Hardness ( D-Scale Durometer )------75-78
Flare Potential------2"-5"
Lane Conditions (Oil)------Medium to Heavy
Pin Distance from C.G.------0"-4"
Top Weight Range------2 to 4 ounces
Surface Finish------Factory Textured (600 Grit)
Available Weights / Core Type
13 - 16 lb. Hammer Core
10 – 12 lb. Elliptical
Technical Specifications - Burgundy Hammer (yellow lettering) (Org. is white which is what I have)
Hook Potential 1 – 20------11
Back End 1 – 15------8
Radius of Gyration------Low
Coefficient of Friction------Medium
Hardness ( D-Scale Durometer )------75-78
Flare Potential------2"-5"
Lane Conditions (Oil)------Medium to Heavy
Pin Distance from C.G.------0"-4"
Top Weight Range------2-4 ounces
Surface Finish------Factory Textured (600 Grit)
Available Weights / Core Type
13 - 16 lb. Hammer Core
10 – 12 lb. Elliptical
As for what does RG-low mean. Heres a couple of the old scales.
Simple RG scale (there are others):
Low RG: 2.460" - 2.570"
Med. RG: 2.570" - 2.680"
High RG: 2.680" - 2.800"
Here's another:
Low RG = 2.430 to 2.540
Med RG = 2.541 to 2.690
High RG = 2.691 to 2.80
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From an old email in regards to old Hammer cores:
I don't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I believe it was around 2.51-2.52 for the low RG, and the differential was around .016". I would have to go way back through some of our files to get the actual numbers, but I think it's pretty close to this.
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Now Hammerheads, it's time for a little secret. Y'all can pick your all time favorite hammer from the above list, but as good as they all were, there was another that was better. Yes - better than the Blue, better than the Black. The Red Razor! Since I finally managed to find my 15# Red Razor, I can spill the beans. The Red Razor got no respect - it was overshadowed by the release of zillions of reactive balls. But it is an awesome ball. It overcomes the one problem I had with the blue hammer - early hook. The high RG core in the Razor gets it through the heads pretty good, and the aggressive urethane cover gives it a monster back end - with no reactive flippiness. Here's a 1996 BTM review:
“There are balls and there are Balls, but the Red Razor was one of the true surprises of 1995. This is truly another of the unconventional urethanes. Although covered in a tweaked urethane name HPF (High Performance), this is one conventional that thinks it’s reactive. The Red Razor is a high RG ball that goes very long, but unlike the earlier generation of urethanes, this ball makes a definite snap to the pocket. It doesn’t hook in the class with the newer Brunswick, Track, Columbia, and Ebonite reactives, but nothing out there – reactive or not – throws more pins around than this Red Razor. And, one of the features that reactive snobs will like is that the Red Razor tracks like a reactive. No gentle arc to the hole. This one goes down and turns hard and nothing – oil or pins – stand in its way. If you are a bowler who is stuck on a condition where reactives keep you in serious trouble, but you don’t want to sacrifice power to gain control, give a good look at the Red Razor. This is Faball at its best. Control and power is tough to beat and this ball will give you both and on some of the trickiest conditions around. Appropriate for all but the oiliest conditions. Suitable for virtually anyone looking for a strong urethane ball.â€
Granted this a massively zombie thread but was thinking of getting a red razor (to go with Burgundy I just got 2nd hand) but they are almost all 16lbs. Also I came across this - http://www.ballreviews.com/faball/lichsteins-1997-ball-guide-faball-only-t257158.0.html - by same poster of comment. Looks to me like the Red Razor is not stronger than the (old) Burgundy just more of the pearl like version (in behavior not actual cover stock) with more motion on the backend with equal or a bit less total hook (also 3 piece vs 2 piece of Burgundy). I am thinking it probably behaves similar to my new version Blue Hammer with perhaps a bit more carry. If that's the case probably only need one Faball in my arsenal. They look nice though but getting close to spare ball strength (but not carry) on modern oil I fear (all synthetic lanes where I live). Will see when I plug and redrill my Burgundy.
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So ended up picking up a 16lb red razor fairly cheap as well because not like its going to be easier to get Faball stuff. Also got the Burgundy punched up today. Will post on here or in the Faball reviews how they roll. Excited to go old school.
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Cool old school Faball advertisement found on ebay.
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Finally rolled the old Burgundy and I can see why it has such a legendary status. Took a 240 grit brown scotch brite by hand to it and with surface on a house shot it was only about 5 boards weaker than The Crow. The carry was close but The Crow was still a little bit better. Still not bad for a 20 year old ball. Will probably take a bit of surface off it and use for a full step under The Crow. Can't wait to try the Red Razor on the way. Thinking more and more I am going to try at least with league on house shot going with an all urethane and psuedo urethane arsenal (old Burgundy, Red Razor, new Burgundy, new Blue Hammer, The Crow and plastic spare ball, could probably use one of the urethanes but gotten real comfortable with now). I love urethane, even the smell is cool as hell.
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Finally rolled the old Burgundy and I can see why it has such a legendary status. Took a 240 grit brown scotch brite by hand to it and with surface on a house shot it was only about 5 boards weaker than The Crow. The carry was close but The Crow was still a little bit better. Still not bad for a 20 year old ball. Will probably take a bit of surface off it and use for a full step under The Crow. Can't wait to try the Red Razor on the way. Thinking more and more I am going to try at least with league on house shot going with an all urethane and psuedo urethane arsenal (old Burgundy, Red Razor, new Burgundy, new Blue Hammer, The Crow and plastic spare ball, could probably use one of the urethanes but gotten real comfortable with now). I love urethane, even the smell is cool as hell.
I love urethane as well!
I have:
From Visionary:
The Crow
The Judge
The Midnight Scorcher
From Hammer:
Black Widow
Purple Hammer (new)
Burgundy Hammer (new, not urethane, but really rolls like urethane)
From Brunswick:
The Grizz
True Motion
From AMF:
AMF Angle Plus
I love them all!
They really make bowling fun.
I generally hate resin and the resin reaction.
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i don't use urethane much at all anymore but i do use an old black diamond quite a bit at one dry house near me.
I love urethane as well!
i remember this from the urethane ball threads on bowling chat. have you thought about the new fever pitch from storm? and hammer has the overseas magenta urethane. my PSO told he he hated the old phantoms not sure why. i saw they have an overseas quantum btu that i want but can't find it anymore
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I dont think there was anything in the low 2.5 range prior to the ceramic cores which came out mych later. My guess is closer to 2.6 rg on the original urethane hammers
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My opinion of course but new purple hammer is better than all the old faball's I own (blue, black, burgundy, red razor). Its even better than the Sumo imo. Carries like a reactive. Its also high RG which is probably why I like it so much.