Bowling Ball Cleaner Experiments 101
By James Goulding III
Hello again bowlers, and it feels good to be back blogging after a nice summer break. I hope everyone is ready for fall leagues as most have either started up already, or will be shortly. There is always a lot of talk surrounding which type of bowling ball cleaner and/or polish to use to keep your bowling equipment looking good. While I have blogged about this in the past, and gone through different types of cleaners, which ones are good to use during USBC certified
competition, and which ones are banned, I would like to take this opportunity
to share a real world experiment I performed using a cleaner available at any
local drug store or supermarket, and I think you will find the results quite
interesting. Just an FYI, here is the USBC list of allowable cleaners and polishes as of the start of the 2011 – 2012 bowling season:
http://bowl.com/equipandspecs/approvedballcleanersandpolishes.jsp
Here are the notes from my personal experiment last season into this season….
I bought a Hammer Swagga and put 90 -100 games on it the last two months of the season between leagues and tournament play. I have used most of the commercial cleaners and even household cleaners on the market, trying to find the simplest, easy to use, and most effective cleaner between sets. I decided to go with 91% isopropyl alcohol, as it is a strong cleaner (in my opinion) and many have debated it’s ability to deep clean a ball and keep oil from seeping deep into the cover of the ball, and it is relatively cheap to purchase (I used the
CVS brand for the experiment) compared to other cleaning products.
Now, anyone who uses high end Hammer equipment knows that these balls soak in oil with the best of them, which is why I wanted to experiment using the Swagga (2000 Abralon factory surface). I religiously cleaned the Swagga immediately at the completion of each set, using only a microfiber towel and the 91% isopropyl alcohol. I also took the ball into the Revivor oven in my pro shop every 35 games to check and see how much oil was coming out of the ball. Also, I kept track of my scores with the ball, and noted ball reaction over the course of the life span in the experiment. Lastly, the ball got one surface freshener at 50 games, back to the original box finish of 2000 Abralon.
Results were very promising for the use of ONLY 91% isopropyl alcohol on your bowling ball as a cleaner. I noted almost ZERO reduction in ball reaction over the course of the experiment, averaging 236.5 in tournament play with the ball, 242.33 in one house on league, and 244.0 in the other house in league play over that span of time. I saw no dip in scoring with the ball from game 1 to 35 before each Revivor session, as the sets were very consistent from beginning to end. As far as oil extraction went, the ball went into the oven for the period
of 30 minutes with just a few drops of oil wiped off, and then an hour, with
only a few more small spots of oil wiped off, and finally at the hour and a half mark I pulled it for the final time noting no more oil coming out of the cover of the ball. This was true with each Revivor session, which honestly blew me away using only the 91% isopropyl alcohol as a cleaning agent on the ball. I thought there would be much more oil seeping from the cover each time, but apparently the isopropyl alcohol did the trick as the only cleaning agent being
used on the ball.
So, based on my personal experience with this experiment, I feel very
comfortable using just 91% isopropyl alcohol to clean my bowling equipment,
which IS approved for use by the USBC during, before, or after competition of
your bowling session. It does a very good job of removing lane oil, dirt, belt marks, and grime from the ball AS LONG AS YOU USE IT IMMEDIATELY AFTER YOUR SET BEFORE YOU PUT THE BALL AWAY EVERY TIME. If you don’t, I can’t say how well this product will work to keep oil out of the cover, but my guess is significantly worse than if you use it immediately after you are done bowling. I am not saying that the cleaners made specifically for bowling balls work any less, rather I wanted to see if I could find a cheaper alternative that worked just as well, and I think I have found that in the 91% isopropyl alcohol. I will try this on balls of different surfaces and textures just to make sure that this works well across multiple types of equipment. I will say that I have used it on a Roto Grip Nomad Dagger and a Brunswick C-System 4.5 with good results, but I will continue my quest for knowledge, and try and post those results up as they come in. I just wanted to share my recent experience in this area, and hope that someone else can find this trick works well for them, too. If you have tried similar experiments as mine, please feel free to post those results up on the comment section of this blog for everyone to learn from and read, thank you. As always, the opinions expressed in this blog are mine, and in no way represent those of the Maine State USBC or any of its members. Take care everyone, and good luck on the start of your bowling seasons!
James Goulding III
(M.I.S.T. Tournament Director)
Bowler 2 Bowler 
James- I’ve been using 91% isopropyl alcohol for a while, also on hammer equipment and have found the same findings as you. My Hammer Black Widow has stayed consistent for me in deep oil on synthetic lanes, and down right brutal on some of the natural lanes around here. Good article.
could using alcohol to clean ball have the opposite effect,lack of rotation?
Ive been reading people mixing their solution with simple green. have you tried this? its a general purpose de-greaser.
I have tried this, in fact mixing it 50/50 with 91% Isopropyl alcohol to dilute it because at full strength the simple green is very potent. In my personal experience, it does not work any better than using straight 91% alcohol, and I performed an in depth experiment with such as you just read in this blog post. I actually have found that the Vise cleaner that is out there now works very well, and in the pro shop I work in, we have a company make a cleaner for us that works as good as anything else out there. It’s more trail and error to see what works best for you. But remember, simple green mixed with anything isn’t USBC approved for use during competition, check their website for a list of acceptable cleaners at it does change all the time. Thanks for reading!
I also use and love 91% iso to clean balls right after bowling as I can spray liberally (no worry about cost) and don’t have to wait to start wiping like with some other cleaners. That said before I found the wonders of iso I bought a quart of Monster Tac which was very expensive (and last time I buy it) but I have found when I have really nasty big black belt marks it does remove them significantly easier than the iso so that is what I use it for now (as a backup cleaner). As for Simple Green it has its place as well as I mix it 1:1 with water and that is what I use for cleaning or lubricating when resurfacing with my ball spinner (only bad thing about iso is yes its very flammable, so don’t use with a ball spinner).