One of the more important bowling accessories is a bowling ball spinner.
A ball spinner allows you to clean, sand, or polish your bowling ball’s surface evenly. As you spin the ball around, you can apply a lot of pressure to the surface to ensure your bowling ball is properly sanded or polished.
Most bowling players will tell you that your ball needs constant care to be in top condition and they’re right.
It’s not just about cleaning though. Bowling balls need polishing and sanding as well.
Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to do this without a piece of equipment that will keep the ball spinning so you’d be able to have access to its entire surface. This is where a bowling ball spinner comes in.
In this article, you’ll find out how you too can make your own bowling ball spinner and why having a spinner handy is key to your ball’s safety and performance.
Contents
How to Make a Bowling Ball Spinner
You can always buy one of course, but where’s the fun in that? Apart from the sense of accomplishment you get from creating your own bowling ball spinner, you also get to save a couple of bucks you would otherwise spend to buy a new one.
If you’re excited and up for the challenge, here’s a list of what you’ll need and an easy-to-follow guide on how you can make a bowling ball spinner.
Materials & Tools
In this tutorial, we’ll be looking at how to build a bowling ball spinner from a tumble dryer motor that is bolted to the side of a garage. Be sure to have all these ready:
- A strong timber to make a box and a sheet of wood made with 2×1’s
- Steel angle
- Water pump (you can just get one from a car)
- Bolts
- Drill
- Dish
Instructions
- The first step is to make a strong box with the timber. Try to strengthen the top of your box using a steel angle.
- Then move to the outer part of the box and fix a water pump on the left-hand side. Ensure the top of the motor’s pully is at the same height as the water pump’s pully (the water pump’s pully is larger).
- When that is done, bolt the water pump in place using 4 bolts.
- The hardest part of this DIY project is finding the perfect dish the size of a ball. To find one, take your bowling ball to several shops and try to see if it fits perfectly into any dish. When you do find one, you’re in luck.
- Drill 3 separate holes in the pully and place the base of the dish between 2 steel plate circles to strengthen it.
- Bolt the steel plate and dish base sandwich to the pully using three bolts in the three holes you drilled earlier. Once that’s done, you have a bowling ball spinner ready to use.
Since this is a DIY project, you have to be sure that you find and use only the right equipment.
For example, you need to ensure the pully attached to your motor spindle isn’t too large. If it’s overly large, the dish spins a lot faster than it should, making it near impossible to clean or polish your bowling ball.
Why you Need a Bowling Ball Spinner
Whether you’re a professional athlete or just a guy who loves the game, you need your bowling ball to be in optimum condition if you’re hoping to perform well while playing. To do this, you need to give your bowling ball a proper cleanup, sanding, and polishing.
Polishing and sanding your bowling ball reduces the friction between the surface and the track allowing the ball to conserve enough energy that is released down the alley.
As you consistently use your bowling ball, its surface wears off and it loses its polishing. This means you need to constantly polish your ball for it to be in top condition.
This is why you need a bowling ball spinner. Without it, the polish is either too little, not enough, or it doesn’t go round the surface of the ball evenly.
It’s not just about getting a bowling ball spinner, you need to get a ball spinner that isn’t too fast or slow.
If the ball spinner is too fast, you’re going to end up applying an awful lot of polish on your ball and it becomes more vulnerable to scratches when it’s thrown down the track area. If it’s too slow, you won’t be able to get enough polish on the ball.
Is Making Your Own Bowling Ball Spinner a Great Idea?
When it comes to DIY projects, it is about the person who is working on the project. Not many people can make bowling ball spinners, but that’s not to say it’s impossible.
As the guidelines on this article suggest, you can make your own ball spinner if you’re able to get the tools needed.
The hardest part is not even putting the spinner together; it’s all about getting your tools. Once you have them ready, you shouldn’t have too much trouble creating your very own bowling ball spinner.
Yet, you must be careful to follow each step meticulously. If anything goes wrong, you’re going to end up with a spinner that doesn’t do its job the way it’s supposed to.
Hence, you need to follow each step and maybe ask for help from friends who have more experience.
Conclusion
Bowling is a fun sport. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional; everyone who plays this game enjoys it.
One of the things that could steal that joy is a ball that doesn’t perform at optimum condition. This is why you need a bowling ball spinner that can help you polish, sand, and clean your ball properly.
As this article has demonstrated, you don’t necessarily have to spend your hard-earned money to buy a bowling ball spinner. With a few tools and your determination to make things work, you too can have your own hand-made bowling ball spinner.