BallReviews
Equipment Boards => Seismic => Topic started by: ChungKingCanSuckIt on August 02, 2019, 09:59:00 PM
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I bought a Seismic Equalizer when they were brand new. Got it drilled shortly after receiving it and used it less than 5 times total.. meaning 5 visits to a bowling alley or less and an average of 3 games per visit.. so less than 15 games.
Anyway, I stored it in the box it came in and stuck it in my closet. I hadn't used it in 6 months or a year. I didn't have a bowling bag for it, because I had got out of bowling a long time ago and no longer had any equipment.
To my surprise the ball was cracked!
I've got nothing heavy placed on top of it. I had not moved it.
I've never seen this before. I've had Columbia, MoRich, and a few others over the years, but none of them have ever cracked.. even after dropping one out a 2 story apartment building onto concrete/blacktop it didn't crack or even chip!
I usually like buying the oddball brands because usually nobody at the bowling alley has one and they're all like what's that? But I won't buy a Seismic ever again that's for sure.
I miss my MoRich Total Annihilation. That ball was fantastic!
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The balls Visionary poured for Seismic I can guarantee will crack less than most other brands. Some of the older Seismic balls were poured in San Antonio and that factory had a bad reputation for awhile but has greatly improved. Any bowling ball can crack especially if it has been drilled and sits in one place too long.
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I know of conflicting information regarding the storage of balls, but it all pertains to the same basic idea -
1. You need to rotate a drilled ball from time to time, even in a climate controlled environment. Gravity stresses the weakest part of a ball until it cracks somewhere around one of the holes. Rotating a ball from time to time helps more evenly distribute the stress.
2. Or maybe there is no need to rotate it, it just needs to be stored with the holes facing downwards. Storing a ball with the holes facing up is a great way to ensure it cracks as soon as possible, because as mentioned, gravity is literally trying to crack it open like a pistachio.
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I always store my bowling balls in thick plastic bags. I don't know if it helps, but (knock on wood), I haven't had one crack that was stored that way yet. I also don't clean the oil off the ball before storing.
There's also several balls that I have not looked at in over five years, so I may in for a surprise when I do. 8^)
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There is a lot of pseudo-science (read: crap that's so ridiculous you would expect a child to come up with it) on this particular subject. For an example, see #2 above. You'll hear people say things like it's from too much super glue on your inserts, or storing bowling balls on wooden racks. I've even seen someone blame it on using a hi-rev style. It's up to you to decide what sounds reasonably plausible. There is not, unfortunately, a universal, scientifically verified reason why bowling balls crack.
That said, the primary idea for why balls crack is that when exposed to heat or cold, the core/cover expand and contract at different rates, which can cause a ball to crack. This is why it is recommended not to store bowling balls in extreme heat or cold, not to leave them in the car, etc. This is based on actual science. Another possibility is poor quality control in the plant where the ball was poured. Impurities in the resin could potentially make it more likely to crack. People like to immediately jump to this one, which I encourage you not to do. I'm also not going to say there's any particular company to avoid...I'm just gonna say Visionary stuff seems to never crack, and they also had the absolute best quality control in the industry, bar none.
I don't know of any actual science that indicates rotating bowling balls is important, but I don't pay that much attention to the subject, so I might just be uneducated about it. I don't see any downside to doing it, though, and it's not like it takes much effort.
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2. Or maybe there is no need to rotate it, it just needs to be stored with the holes facing downwards. Storing a ball with the holes facing up is a great way to ensure it cracks as soon as possible, because as mentioned, gravity is literally trying to crack it open like a pistachio.
I would love to know how storing a bowling ball holes down reduces the effect of gravity "literally trying to crack it open like a pistachio". Please include a vector diagram.
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There is a lot of pseudo-science (read: crap that's so ridiculous you would expect a child to come up with it) on this particular subject. For an example, see #2 above. You'll hear people say things like it's from too much super glue on your inserts, or storing bowling balls on wooden racks. I've even seen someone blame it on using a hi-rev style. It's up to you to decide what sounds reasonably plausible. There is not, unfortunately, a universal, scientifically verified reason why bowling balls crack.
That said, the primary idea for why balls crack is that when exposed to heat or cold, the core/cover expand and contract at different rates, which can cause a ball to crack. This is why it is recommended not to store bowling balls in extreme heat or cold, not to leave them in the car, etc. This is based on actual science. Another possibility is poor quality control in the plant where the ball was poured. Impurities in the resin could potentially make it more likely to crack. People like to immediately jump to this one, which I encourage you not to do. I'm also not going to say there's any particular company to avoid...I'm just gonna say Visionary stuff seems to never crack, and they also had the absolute best quality control in the industry, bar none.
I don't know of any actual science that indicates rotating bowling balls is important, but I don't pay that much attention to the subject, so I might just be uneducated about it. I don't see any downside to doing it, though, and it's not like it takes much effort.
Very well described sir, most of these equations play a factor.
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It's so simple, I don't understand how no one has mentioned it yet. If you don't want your bowling balls to crack, EVER, just make sure to only buy and drill them on the 5th Thursday in February. Yea, yea, I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's truly the only protection you have to ensure that your bowling balls never crack.
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Really? I never knew that. Thanks for the info!
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The one common denominator I have found to virtually every ball I have had crack was the ball was on its second or more drill or it had a balance hole (that may have been plugged). Plugs and balance holes are a risk factor especially outside strict climate control imo. That said still believe balls just sometimes crack no matter what and kind of one of those luck of the draw things. Heard people on here say seen even undrilled balls crack stored in bag in boxes properly.
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I have lost 20+ over the last 4 to 41/2 years. Yes, I own/owned a lot of balls.
All were first drills and only about 25% had a weight hole.
I have to admit since putting them is plastic bags and rotating them every month or two, the number of balls cracking completely has diminished significantly from what it was for me. With one exception, I had my 900 Global After Dark solid crack completely a few weeks ago, but it was replaced under the warranty.
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There's a driller in Tucson who has said that the primary reason why so many of the balls he drilled for bowlers in our center had cracked was because our center had Twister pins.
That was a good one too. : )
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Mayday, Mayday this is Tucson calling. We need a new driller. Hurry!!
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Chung, welcome to ball reviews. Your topic or a form of it comes up often. There are a bunch of theories on cracking but a lot of it is unexplained.
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Maybe not like a pistachio, but if the holes are up, you're putting the stress risers in a bad location.
The three most prominent causes of cracking are bad glue placement, lack of bevel and improper storage. Keeping a ball in the bag and box it came in will reduce the effect of humidity changes or the ball "drying out" and I'm not 100% sure on rotating the ball, but it can't hurt, and if it can't hurt, there's no reason not to do it if there's the slightest shred of evidence that it may help.
On the glue placement, this is just straight science. Very very little glue is actually needed to keep an insert in the ball, and if you place the glue at the top of the hole, it will get into the pores of the coverstock and since it doesn't expand and contract at the same rate as the cover does, it will most of the time eventually cause cracking. If not the big split that runs down the side of the ball, you'll get the small circular cracking just around the fingers or thumb.
With the bevel, just more science again. A more rounded hole spreads out direct shock as much as possible, while a sharper edge will fracture much more easily OR will allow cracks to start much more easily. Temperature of course is a well known and accepted cause, so no need to elaborate on that.
There are a lot of crazy off the wall excuses out there, but these that I've listed ARE legitimate AND enough so that sharp holes, poor storage, and/or glue placement can void a warranty. Usually they'll only void stuff due to lack of bevel because the other is harder to see through a picture, or just impossible to tell, but all will cause a ball to crack consistently.
2. Or maybe there is no need to rotate it, it just needs to be stored with the holes facing downwards. Storing a ball with the holes facing up is a great way to ensure it cracks as soon as possible, because as mentioned, gravity is literally trying to crack it open like a pistachio.
I would love to know how storing a bowling ball holes down reduces the effect of gravity "literally trying to crack it open like a pistachio". Please include a vector diagram.
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There is a lot of pseudo-science (read: crap that's so ridiculous you would expect a child to come up with it) on this particular subject. For an example, see #2 above.
You'd have people believe I said rotating a ball was the most important factor in preventing a ball from cracking. But you'll notice that my first sentence in point #1 made clear that it pertained to things you can do beyond properly storing a ball in a climate controlled environment.
I thought this kind of hostility was a thing of the past on this site. I know I was a part of said hostility back in the day, but I've tried to moderate my tone after coming back to the sport and this site after a decade off; I implore you to do the same.
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I have no idea if this is true or not, but I have heard to not leave your ball sitting on carpet. Either the stain guards or fire retardants that are in the carpets do something to the cover and make it more prone to crack. Again, I have no idea if this is true or flim flam, but it seems plausible.
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Luke said it already but improper beveling for sure, dull drill bits can also cause issues that are not immediately an issue, but causes some stress on cover, or so I've been told
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I have no idea if this is true or not, but I have heard to not leave your ball sitting on carpet. Either the stain guards or fire retardants that are in the carpets do something to the cover and make it more prone to crack. Again, I have no idea if this is true or flim flam, but it seems plausible.
Flim, flam. I routinely leave a bunch (6-10) of balls on a carpet (over a cement floor) in the basement for months to years. Not one has ever cracked.
I also leave several on ball cups on wooden shelves. The carpet sits in front of these wooden shelves (made with 2x4s, 2x6s and MDF.) Not one of them has cracked either. They're in the same basement.
On the wooden shelves, many balls, drilled and undrilled, are stored in their original plastic bags and their original boxes. I do not rotate a single one of them.
Some have been there for over 20 years.
Of about 200 balls that have passed through my hands, while I lived in this house and stored my balls in the basement, 3 have cracked; a Track Sensor, a Storm Ride. I forget the 3rd.
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Virtually anything.
Hit it with a hammer, drop it from a plane, or glue inserts in it and throw it at pins.
Cold weather, hot weather, gravity, cosmic radiation, anti-matter, syzygy, inner core expansion, cover shrinkage, bad luck, black cats, the strong force, static electricity, dark matter, seismic irregularities, quantum mechanics, harmonious sub-sonic vibrations of the nucleus of a neutron star, or fate.
Its all the same. The damn thing cracked, and you gotta get another one.
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I Lost so many balls this summer. They were dropping like flies.My Conclusion of the main causes Are.
1. Temperature changes. Going from 85° to 70° almost daily is not healthy. Only the strong will survive. (I'm in Vegas and I don't do $500 Power Bills.)
2. Sharp Edges. Bevel all your holes. Sharp Holes. Ball will crack like Egg.