Hot Water Bowling Ball Soak

Balls are tacky because they have a High Coeff. of friction and they are porous. A waxy surface is not doing that. Chlorinated paraffin's are used as plasticizers they may well be used in balls, though I haven't seen them talked about being used in balls. A quick google of it show use in some bowling products so it may be used.

Ok the heating ball debate just keeps going.
It started basically like this. They came out with reactive resin balls they hooked a lot more than urethane. One of reasons they hooked more was the the material drew oil away from the surface of the ball. Do the porous nature of the material.

As time passed the materials used could absorb a lot more oil. Then we started seeing ball death which was mostly do to oil saturation of the coverstock. So people started trying to get the oil out. They saw the balls sweat in hot cars and got the idea to heat them.

As this went on they started saying that the heat was not just making oil come out. But the "plasticizers" used in the ball material. And if you lost the plasticizer the ball would stop hooking because that's what made it hook.

Well now that's changed now they say the ball stops hooking because the plasticizers, which are migrating to surface of the ball and reducing the hook.( which I would go with the waxy surface here) Plus its getting oil soak too.

The problems with heating a ball is the use of dry heat also its sudden temp. chanes. People bake them in a oven to get the oil out and if your not real careful you'll mess the ball up bad. You'll crack it or warp it or the core will separate etc. There are a couple of machines designed to do it right that proshops have. your oven at home is not one of them.

That's why someone came up with the "Hot water and Dawn" method its a fairly safe way to to get the oil out. It just warms the ball evenly. The only real thing to watch for is not leaving the ball in the water to long or it might absorb some water. if it did you would just have to let it dry out for awhile longer. Some people have said that after a hot water bath. The ball took one or two games to start working, I think this is be cause of it just needing a longer drying time or not fulling getting the soapy water out. For the most part everyone I've seen use the bath has said it works no harm done. I cant remember for sure what the Bowling For Dummies would say about this, but I'm sure they would have the same thoughts.

The best thing to keep a ball working at its peak is to clean it after you get done bowling. Give it a good deep cleaning with something like clean'N dull once a week or so depending on how much you bowl. and a hot water bath once a month. plus maintain your surface texture.