For someone with little experience in maintaining equipment, what is recommended as far as ball maintenance?  I have a Storm cleaning product that the pro shop sold me and said to clean the ball at least ever 12 - 15 games.  Is that all I need to be doing?  Is there a rule of thumb as far as getting a ball resurfaced after X number of games?

I'm getting back into bowling in a big way after a long layoff, and I want to ensure I'm making the most out of my equipment.  Thanks!

Thanks for the advice all!  Glad I'm asking this early on in the ball's use.  Here's my to do list I've been making:

1) Go to store and buy micro fiber towels

2) Purchase a good cleaner and clean right after (or soon after!) bowling.  Looking at the clean n dull here: http://www.bowling.com/products/powerhouse-clean-n--dull-quart.htm

3) Purchase pads to use every 9 - 12 games.  Looking at these:  http://www.bowling.com/products/abralon-sanding-pad-4000-grit.htm

4) Visit pro shop about further resurfacing when necessary (usually 25 - 40ish games).

5)  Kick some @ss on my bowling league!!!

Let me know if I'm missing anything.  Thanks agains!!

Back in the day, there was a great band called Public Enemy.  One of their biggest songs was titled "Don't Believe the Hype!"   Good advice, especially when it comes to cleaning your bowling ball.  There are a couple of users on here who seemingly own stock in bowling ball cleaner companies. 

As Nails and Mainzer have said, simple cleaners work just fine.  Many people, me included, make our own cleaner using 33% H20, 33% Simple Green, 33% Isoproyl Alcohol (preferrably 90% or stronger).  Look up what components make up a good all-purpose cleaner and you'll see why that formula works.   

Oil removal?  Use a microfiber towel before every shot.  Use the above cleaner before bagging the balls after bowling.  When you can moisten your thumb, rub it on the ball and not get a good "squeak" and friction between skin and ball, time to de-oil.  If you see your ball doesn't react as it did new, time to de-oil.  Do the thumb test and you will be alerted that its time to de-oil long before you see less reaction.  Safe and easy way to de-oil?  Go to the pro shop and have your ball put in the Rejuvenator.  Safe and easy way to de-oil and save money?  Put ball in dishwasher, no soap, no heated dry, no sanitize.  Run one normal cycle (90 minutes).  Like new.  Wife won't let you do that (she should, won't hurt dishwasher at all), put ball in bucket of hot water with some Dawn dish soap and let soak.  Wipe oil off surface of ball, repeat until you don't see an oil sheen on top of water and ball feels clean.

Resurfacing or maintaining factory surface?  You can carry some Abralon pads around but that is just a superficial fix.  Factories build up to OOB surface in steps.  This is best left, ideally, to a pro shop with a Haus machine to simulate how the factory finishes a ball with various grit pads.  At the very least, this should be down by somebody who knows their way around a ball spinner.

Unlike some of the advice that you have gotten that is just re-gurgitated from bowling magazine articles and print from advertisements, the methods above are real world tested, real world approved, and real world effective.  Choice is and always will be yours.       

If you don't have access to someone who can teach you, just ask here. There are several of us who would be more than happy to help you out.

+100 for this comment for me...im more or less a total newb...just started bowling 4 years ago and just recently started getting into proper cleaning methods and such and this site has been nothing but patient and helping with any and all questions i have had no matter how small or stupid

so glad i found this site

Thanks again to everyone.  Regardless of the differing opinions in this thread, what I was instructed to do before definitely wasn't cutting it, so I'm moving in the right direction.  I'm only bowling in one league currently, but that will probably change to more in the future and hopefully some tournaments as well.  I'm also looking to take some lessons soon to see what I need to work on to hopefully elevate my game.  Based on the anticipated increase in bowling frequency, I wanted to make sure I had maintenance down and this thread has helped.

Ok LGD. You made a claim of regurgitation, but refuse to back it up with anything specific. So be it. Unfortunately, Nothing more was expected.

For anyone with an open mind, spinners are perfectly safe, and once you get the hang of operation, you get a good feel for the grits, time, and the amount of pressure to achieve your objective. They work for 90% of the proshops that use them as their primary resurface tool. At a personal level, I shot a 756 last night with a ball I've resurfaced several times. Amazing. No flat spots, and the ball has remarkably remained round. Who knew??

Again, anyone with an open mind who wants to learn the advantages of maintaining your own surfaces, just ask. There are many qualified folks here willing to help out.

A haus machine would be great and convenient but not always cost effective for an individual or a proshop.

Will a home spinner get you the desired results you want? Yes very much so. It is not complicated by any means and likely Gizmo has or will post a video demo with the other things he is doing. For serious bowlers it is a great $200-250 investment along with the other ideas LGD as mentioned.

I will be trying LGD 3in1 cleaner here likely next week. If you have ever purchased something very "bowling specific" only to realize it looks and smells just like windex you may see how many of these items are just over priced relabeled materials from the every day world.

Same for many of the tools used in the proshop. You do not have to buy the hype to have it.

I'm sure more users besides me would love to see all the documentation that your own comparisons of cleaners produced.  I would imagine you have reams and reams of useful information.  Please post is ASAP.  Inquiring minds are eager to know.

So typical.  So quick to dismiss somebody's opinion because there is no documentation of results, yet you offer none.  You really should read to yourself what you type at least three times and then delete it.  Would save everybody a lot of eyestrain.   

Read that, kidlost?  Don't post your results of trying out my recipe for a cleaner unless you can back it up with a signed affadavit from Underwriters Laboratories.    

Be prepared to share the recipe, Kid.  Everybody in my leagues who have asked about it and tried it use it to this day.  They realized the folly of spending ten bucks for a bottle of water, citric acid or some other detergent, and a surfactant when they can mix their own for pennies and have it do the job better.