So I was thinking about my childhood experiences bowling awhile back and it hit me that the bowling balls I used as a child were those hard black rubber ones.
Those old Brunswick and AMF balls really took a beating in the hands of us youngsters. And yet, they had survived being dropped how many hundreds of times I can't even begin to guess.
Hard ... black ... rubber ... hmmm ...
And there's a bowling ball manufacturer named "Ebonite" ... hmmm ...
Then I started wondering what exactly was inside a bowling ball.
I know I opened up some golf balls a few times when I was a kid and found a mile long rubberband. So surely there must be some weird stuff inside a bowling ball.
And there is, oftentimes. But there are some pretty solid ones, too, as I have discovered.
Yeap, I found this cool article (in .pdf format) over at www.penturners.org about how you can harvest a heck of a lot of ebonite/acrylic from an old bowling ball.
It seems the lighter weight balls tend to be full of plastic foam or wood, but the heavier balls -- those in the 15 lb range -- tend to be more solid rubber/acrylic.
The article gives some good advice to look into the existing finger holes to gauge how much usable stock you might hope to find inside.
Of course, sawing up a bowling ball is no easy task, I'm sure, but trying to source ebonite on the internet isn't all that easy, either. I know that I can count on three fingers the number of sources I have found thus far.
So I just thought I would toss it out there as food for thought. Some of you garagesalers might want to keep an eye out.
This guy on Ebay currently has 35 new-old-stock 15-lb "retro" "hard rubber" bowling balls that look pretty promising. Can you imagine buying 15 pounds of ebonite for $24, including shipping?
But I'm leaning towards getting my hands on an old Brunswick or AMF, myself. I'm thinking the older/heavier the ball, the more likely it'll be that I'll hit gold, black gold, inside.
Interesting Potential Source of Ebonite/Acrylic
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pierredekat
I believe it.hazmat wrote:I believe cumberland is used in bowling balls, as well.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 7195617551
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pierredekat
I think the way I'd do it is split it right down the middle with one of those Stanley 26-Inch handsaws with the really sharp, hardened-tooth blades.ArtGuy wrote:So who is going to be the one to take a bowling ball to thier table saw?
Once you split it, you'd have two hemispheres with a maximum-sized flat side on them. That would cut on a bandsaw a lot easier. Or else you could try a reciprocating saw or a circular saw with carbide teeth or whatever.
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pierredekat
Yeah, I was just doing some rough figuring, and this is very rough figuring, mind you.hazmat wrote:Therein lies the problem. I've heard of harvesting stock from bowling balls before, I just can't imagine going through the effort of collecting, storing, chopping, etc.
Let's say you have a bowling ball that has 1-inch thick ebonite over the surface of the ball.
In that situation, I'd calculate it out with surface area, with a 1x1x4-inch strip equaling a stem. Figuring in a lot of scrap, you could still expect to harvest, say, 15 stems from a single bowling ball.
Using Pipemakers' Emporium ebonite rod prices -- 22mm x 20" rod at $35 -- 4-inch long stems will run you $7 apiece. So multiplying that by 15 stems per bowling ball comes out to $105 worth of stems per bowling ball.
That would be at the very low end of what you could harvest, so let's look at the high end, where you have a bowling ball of solid ebonite.
Instead of looking at just harvesting stems based on surface area, we could almost go by weight, since there would be a whole lot less scrap.
You could cut the ball into discs, cut the discs into strips, and harvest enough stock to make somewhere in the neighborhood of, say, 40 stems.
At $7 apiece, that would be $280 worth of ebonite in a single bowling ball. So that's getting to the point where it starts becoming extremely attractive.
Depending considerably on the ball's construction, somebody with a day or so to spare could expect to harvest somewhere in that $100-$300 range worth of ebonite from a single bowling ball.
I don't know, just seems to me like there's a lot of potential there, ya know.
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pierredekat
Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to really pursue it yet. Lately I have been looking around for an old-school bench lathe -- old cast iron Atlases and such -- just to have it. That, and ordering a new stamp, sourcing fabric for pipe socks, making pipes, etc. Hopefully I'll have a little more time this winter to crack one open.sprangalang wrote:Any success with this harvest?
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Danskpibemager
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Bowling Balls
I finally got my hands on an old bowling ball last night and I was so pumped that I could harvest a bunch of stems from it and then I went to work on it. First of all the ball was cracked which made it easier to split open with two screw drivers pounded into it. The actual thickness of ebonite is about 3/4" on a 16 Lb. ball. My next step was to cut it into 3/4" x 1" by whatever length on my bandsaw and that's when my enthusiasm dropped off the table. The smell is unbelievably bad and I could not cut the pieces in a straight line despite using a straight edge. The saw blade kept skewing into the neck of the bandsaw. I've worked with Acrylic on many occasions and the smell of turning or sanding is not that pleasant but this stuff takes the cake. I think I'll stick to ebonite rods or acrylic and spend my time crafting pipes instead. Just thought I'd pass along my experience and perhaps somebody else has a better method.
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pierredekat