One more comment about Hook-It...
It seems to me that Hook-it will evaporate eventually, but I think what actually happens most of the time is that it soaks into the ball. On most balls, Hook-It will seem to dry up after 30-60 seconds of massaging it into the ball. On other balls, specifically my Diesel Particle Solid, Hook-It stays on the ball for a LONG time. It has done this ever since the ball was brand new. After I finish rubbing Hook-It into this ball, it just stays on the surface. I can wipe the excess off with a towel, and the ball still has a residual quantity of Hook-It on it for 5 minutes or more. I'm obsessive about keeping my bowling balls clean, so my stuff never gets very dirty. Once last year our sixth man was bowling and he had never done anything to clean his Messenger. Of course, he was getting no reaction out of it anymore. I talked him into letting me attack it with Hook-It before our league started. I grabbed a stack of bar napkins and went at it. For about the first 3 go-rounds, I got black gunk off of the ball. After that, I started getting yellow, oily gunk out of the ball. I never did have time to clean it up to my standards, but that ball recovered a good bit of it's reaction that night and the guy started using Hook-It himself after that.
This is not conclusive by any means, but based on my experience with my own stuff and the anecdote just above, I have arrived at the theory that Hook-It soaks into most bowling balls and to at least some extent displaces oil that has soaked into the ball, bringing the oil to the surface for removal. I think evaporation plays a part in it, but the way that the stuff sits for ages on my Diesel tells me that on most balls, it soaks in.
Shiv
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Listening to the monotonous staccato of rain on my desk top