bowling ball stem material

pennsyscot · Post by **pennsyscot** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 5:09 pm

I have aquired an old bowling ball at no cost. It appears to be a very large chunk of vulcanized rubber. I'm planning to cut it up for stem material. Is there any reason I should not do this? Is a bowling bowl solid rubber? thanks, Scot

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 5:17 pm

This was mentioned in another thread. I believe it is regular vulcanite and can be used for stems. Due to the curvature of the ball, the stems might be somewhat short, since the ball itself has a hollow core.

ToddJohnson · Post by **ToddJohnson** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 6:47 pm

Only the outside "shell" will be usable vulcanized rubber. Once you get further in than that, you're looking at the "core" material, whatever it happens to be. Jody tried this some years back. If those things were solid usable vulcanite, I'd have my garage stacked full of them. You should be able to get some usable material out of it for sure, though.

Todd

Anvil · Post by **Anvil** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 9:18 am

I remember that thread as well. I don't think that the problem was how much of the ball was vulcanite. I think the problem was how much work it was to cut up the ball. Someone tried it with a band saw and said it was quite a labor intensive process. The other problem that they ran into was the smell. I'm sure it is nothing different than sanding a stem but on a larger scale.

RadDavis · Post by **RadDavis** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:22 am

How *do* you cut up a bowling ball? Chain saw? That initial cut would be a bugger.

Rad

ToddJohnson · Post by **ToddJohnson** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:19 pm

Anvil wrote:I remember that thread as well. I don't think that the problem was how much of the ball was vulcanite. I think the problem was how much work it was to cut up the ball. Someone tried it with a band saw and said it was quite a labor intensive process. The other problem that they ran into was the smell. I'm sure it is nothing different than sanding a stem but on a larger scale.

This has nothing to do with a thread. About seven or eight years ago, Jody Davis tried this with a bowling ball and found that only the outer shell was vulcanite.

Todd

kkendall · Post by **kkendall** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:56 pm

There is only about 3/8" or so of vulcanite around a wood core. Not worth the effort.

ToddJohnson · Post by **ToddJohnson** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:21 pm

RadDavis wrote:How *do* you cut up a bowling ball?

Rad

You just use a bowling-ball-cutter.

Todd

jeff · Post by **jeff** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 3:54 pm

RadDavis wrote:How *do* you cut up a bowling ball? Chain saw? That initial cut would be a bugger.

Rad

Send it to Mimmo.

pennsyscot · Post by **pennsyscot** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 6:29 pm

I do not have a bandsaw large enough to handle a bowling ball. So, I've begun to cut it in half with hand saws. I'm only one third of the way through and I'm exhausted. So far all the saw dust looks and smells like rubber. The saw is constantly getting stuck. I have to keep the blade lubricated with wax just to keep it moving. It does smell like burnt rubber, but no worse then workin a stem. I will post pics when and if I make it all the way through. I hope I get more than a sore shoulder out of this.

jeff · Post by **jeff** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 8:43 pm

There's no harm experimenting, but you might find it more worth your time to make pipes and buy rod stock.

pierredekat · Post by **pierredekat** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 2:56 pm

Yeah, I looked at this awhile back.

Cutting Bowling Balls on a Band Saw

Some balls are made from urethane, and some have very little actual usable material involved, but I would bet money there's a few ebonite bowling balls that would make some dandy stems.

pennsyscot · Post by **pennsyscot** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:36 pm

Rob, thanks for the article. I was unable to read the text, for some reason it appears as a bunch of strange symbols. I've been having this trouble with PDF files recently. The pictures are clear and I see that I have the exact same ball that is marked as ebonite in the first picture. I see that the first 1.25" is made of ebonite, this would yield a great deal of stem material. However, I have the ball with the ugly splotches of color on it. I don't think that would make attractive stems. I was hoping that the black material in the core was going to be useful. I guess that Jay was correct, I should focus my efforts on trying to make a decent pipe. I simply could not resist the allure of a large quantity of free material. Although, If I should happen upon a black rubber bowling ball I'll definitely be sawing again.

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 9:47 pm

pennsyscot wrote:I was unable to read the text, for some reason it appears as a bunch of strange symbols. I've been having this trouble with PDF files recently.

It's possible all you need is an update to your Adobe Reader.

pennsyscot wrote:However, I have the ball with the ugly splotches of color on it. I don't think that would make attractive stems.

From the picture, it looks as if the colour splotches are only on the surface of the ball.

me2cyclops · Post by **me2cyclops** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:05 pm

careful not to cut through the center , some have a ceramic core that really buggers up blades

pennsyscot · Post by **pennsyscot** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:54 am

From the picture, it looks as if the colour splotches are only on the surface of the ball.

The depth of color penetration varies between .5 and .75". It would be difficult to work around. I could probably get a couple stems out of it.

careful not to cut through the center , some have a ceramic core that really buggers up blades

This is a very old bowling ball. It is made from solid rubber. The outer 1-1.25" is ebonite. Yes, there is variation in the thickness of the outer layer. The interior is some type of hardened rubber, but there seems to some filler mixed with it. I have sawed all the way through and have found the ball to be solid with no core.

I got tired of sawing so i broke the last part. The fracture revealed the difference between the inner and outer materials. I can see small flecks of brown material, maybe sawdust?,in the fractured core material.