When you bowling sometimes you run into a trouble with your balls not hooking enough cause the lanes are to oily. Now this can be hard to adjust for a new bowler or ever some one that’s been bowling for years. There are ways to get your ball to move on oily shots, but sometimes there is too much oily for any one or any bowling ball.

Say you’re bowling on your league and you’re using one of your balls that are in between your one the hooks the most and the one that doesn’t hook. You’re in warm up and your ball just isn’t hooking back to the pocket and when it does it hits so weak that you leave splits or 7-10s. Say you have a ball speed around 17-18 mph, the first thing you should do is slow you ball speed down say to 15-16 or if your ball still isn’t hooking go even slower till your ball starts hooking, maybe you don’t like to slow down you can always move to the track area on the lanes( the 10^th board on either side of the lane) why do this, it’s because this part of the lane is the most used and will give you the most friction to get your ball hooking. You can throw into that part of the lane or go straight up the 2^nd arrow (which is the 10^th board). Remember the straighter you throw your ball the better chance you have of getting your ball to hook.

            Another thing to do is to go and grad your bowling ball that hooks the most and try to use that. Try everything that I told you earlier, and if that doesn’t help you can always go out and sand your ball so you can get that extra kick to get that ball to hook. When using your strongest ball on heavy oil it will give you the best chance of hooking. Next thing is you can try to get a little extra lift on your bowl and try to get more revolutions (or revs), because more revs more hook.

If you need more help on oily lanes maybe you could go and get a new ball that’s made for heavy oil. After you read this check out my bowling balls for oil blog.

Remember don’t be afraid of trying different things when bowling.

                      When bowling sometimes your ball just seems to be dead, which mean that when your ball hits the pocket it hits weak and leaving pocket 7 pins 10 pins, and maybe even the 5 pin. When bowling on a house shot on your league the shot is always the same, so why is your ball not hooking like it was. Well when bowling on a house shot oil is put out on the lanes, more in the middle less on the outside. With the new balls coming out today they will soak up oil and dry the lane up after every shot you throw, unlike in the past with plastic ball they push the oil down the lane. After your ball is use more and more your ball will hook less cause the ball will become oil soak, (Which means your ball is full of oil) say your ball is made for heavy oil and is drilled to go along with a sharp break point. So if your ball is goes longer then is use to, or your ball doesn’t break sharply when going down the lane and is making an arch that mean your ball has soaked up a lot of oil.

            There are a few ways of fixing this problem and preventing this from happening to fast. First step is to go to your local proshop or go online and buy some ball cleaners like Kegel No-Sweat Hand Cleaner, Lane Master Pure Clean, PowerHouse Ball Cleaner, or the Lane #1 Secret Sauce. After using your own ball cleaner it will not get all the oil out of your ball but it will get enough oil out or the cover stock, but cleaners can’t get the oil the soaked deep into the cover stock. When the oil soaks deep into the cover stock cleaners or sanding won’t even help so you got to go one more step. The next step is the bake your bowling ball, when baking a bowling ball it involves placing the bowling ball in an oven on low heat, when the ball is in the oven it will oozes, and push the oil out on the surface of the ball, which when this happens you wipe the oil off the surface, till the oil stops oozing from the ball. This method might take a while but will not damage your ball, when you’re done baking your ball it should be back to normal.

            Some urethanes will bleed oil, and other won’t. You’ll need to experiment on your own to determine if any of your urethane bowling balls work well under this procedure. WARNING!! DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BAKE A PLASTIC OR POLYESTER BOWLING BALL. Plastics can warp under relatively low heat and ruin your bowling ball…do NOT bake your plastic bowling ball! Plastic and polyester bowling balls do not regularly soak up any oil due to their hard composition anyway so baking, even if possible, will have no effect.

Procedure to bake a bowling ball:

I. Recommended materials:  Step one get a clean terry cloth towels (lots of them, at least half a dozen is recommended).

Step two is getting some rubbing alcohol or your favorite RR cleaning solution.

Step three is getting an oven thermometer.

Step four get a roll of tin foil or an aluminum pie pan.

The last step is an oven.

II. Procedure:

        1. Preheat the oven to 200F (warm setting)…use your thermometer to ensure the oven temp is no more than plus or minus 5 degrees from this temp.  Adjust accordingly.

        2. Once the oven has reached the proper temperature, use tin foil to form a “cup” to set the bowling ball on while it’s in the oven or use a pie pan to set the ball on.  This prevents the ball from rolling around in the oven and the hot metal rails from contacting the surface of the ball.       

        3. Place the ball in the pan or tin foil “cup” in the oven (making sure that the ball doesn’t contact the heating elements on the top of the stove), and close the door.  Wait about one minute and open the door.  Observe the ball and if the ball becomes “shiny” or gets a “wet” look, the oil is starting to bleed.

        4. Take a couple of dry towels and remove the ball from the oven and, working quickly, wipe the surface of the ball off with the alcohol or RR cleaning solution.  You must work quickly because the oil will quickly be absorbed back into the ball as the ball cools.

   5. Return the ball to the oven and repeat step 4 until the ball no longer bleeds oil.  Be warned that depending on the condition of the ball, you may have to repeat this procedure 7 or 8 times before all of the oil is removed.

               The other method and last is to washy your ball in the dish washer, the thing behind this is that it doesn’t take as much time as baking and when you place the ball in the washer put on the lower rack and when the hot water hits the ball it pushes the oil out and the water washes the oil off the ball. I have used this method many times and I have seen great results. But it’s up to you.

               The only way to slow down the affect of your ball soaking up to much oil is to wipe your ball off after every shot and this will slow down this affect.

This post is to tell everyone that vists my website that you can email me. If you want me to go out and buy a new ball and make a video on it and give you info about it i will, but i can’t be 100% that i will have to money to do that, so if you want to make a donation to me thats fine to. If you need more information about anything i can help you, you just have to e mail me.

Do High performance bowling balls make a difference in bowling? there are many opinions on this subject. I’ll give you mine.

High performance bowling balls have different coverstocks than mid performance bowling balls. Some of these coverstocksare; Reactive Pearl, C4 solid Reactive,  particle, particle pearl. With all these different coverstocks, the high performance balls have more options than the mid performance bowling balls. The coverstock doesn’t make up a bowling ball, it’s the combination of the coverstock and core.

       High performance bowling balls do make a difference in a few ways. The first way would be that they give you more options then mid-performance bowling balls. Another way is that in tournaments where the oil patters can be hard a high performance bowling ball will be better then a mid-performance bowling ball.

     Mid-performance bowling balls only give you limited options in categories such as length, overall hook, and angle to the pocket, while the high performance bowling balls will give you way more options and different looks at the pocket.

     Another thing to keep in mind is that the coverstock of the bowling ball can only last so long. A way to keep your ball hitting hard and reacting the same, time and time again, is to clean your ball or balls after bowling. Another thing is that you can go to a pro shop and ask them to refinish your ball. When your ball gets refinished, they use a special oil remover to get rid of the oil that has soaked into your coverstock. 

PowerHungry Bowling is my own web site that i made for people to view, leave comments, to see my bowling ball reviews, and to see how my bowling career is going.

Another thing is that this site also provides information on bowling balls. For any other questions please send me a e mail at henry =at= phbowling.com.