Slicing up old Bowling Balls?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ How soon will your bandsaw be "up?" A Sawzall will have a hard time on any cut except straight across the maximum diameter, because the soleplate won't make proper contact, and the saw will "dance." On the cut straight across the diameter, you will need a pretty long blade, and the going will be slow.

Don't have a good answer here but you bring up a question here....a few years back, old bowling balls were $ .25 each at the local goodwill. There have GOT to be some interesting ideas on what to do with them in terms of projects.

I have seen those large "clackers" from the 70's where they had 5 balls parallel hanging from cords...pull one ball out and it swings into the line where the motion is transferred through the other balls and one goes swinging on the other side..conservation of energy machine or whatever you want to call it...with bowling balls, they are about 8 feet high

I have also seen them used to top steel parking posts filled with concrete (in front of a pawn shop..maybe playing on the old 3-balls logo of pawn shops). Made the old standard post thing a little more decorative.

Anyone got more ideas?

There has to be a ton of uses for these things..with all the bowling centers folding (going the way of drive ins?), I expect more on the junk market.

Koz

Build a cannon?

Actually my thought was to put a cannon in the yard and stack the balls near it. But why not shoot them? :) Randy

A bowling ball mortar is probably a little more doable. I've seen them in action and they will launch a bowling ball W-A-Y out there! Black powder for propellant.

An air cannon (punkin chucker) might work well with bowling balls.?????

I'm thinkin' lathe and cut-off tool.

How about dropping them from a tall building onto some concrete?

Make sure you yell FOUR first. :)

Any wood cutting saw will do. I think I used a bow saw when I cut one more or less in half. It does not take all that long to cut a bowling ball.

Another use for bowling balls is for engraving. In a simple cradle the ball can be set at most any angle you desire. Ditto if you drill and tap for a 1/4 20 thread and screw in a stud. Now you have a camera mount for use with telephoto lenses.

Dan

Drill a hole though it, flip a long hacksaw blade around so that it faces the interior of the saw, then feed the blade through the hole. Begin sawing. For that matter, if you had a really good jigsaw you could probably just saw out from one of the finger holes, but... itd probably be faster to do it by hand, and you wouldn't need a new jigsaw afterwards. A new arm is an entirely different matter, however ;). GCC

Depending on where you are, that's called either a "Merlin's Cradle" or a "Newton's Cradle". The trick with 'em that baffled me was when you pull back three balls at once and turn 'em loose as a group - and two of the three you pulled are sitting still, while the third one and the two you didn't pull are in motion.

I'm thinking a hand saw if your bandsaw is down. Once you get it small enough, table saw.

Wes S

Why not Three or Five? I think you mean FORE! :-) ...lew...

Don't ask me why not 3 or 5, I'm not a golfer!

:)

I believe someone used a ring of them as a bearing for a garage turntable for cars. Some ultimate garage show, as I remember. Respectfully, Ron Moore

Both momentum (mass * velocity) and kinetic energy (1/2 * mass * velocity^2) are conserved in the collision. In order for that to be true, both the mass of the moving balls and the velocity of the balls must be equal in the instants before and after the collision. In other words, the same number of balls (assuming the balls are identical) must be in motion before and after the collision.

Ned Simmons

What is the material that a bowling ball is made of/from? How does it work (after you've gotten it cut up)? Bob

Harold

Cannon! Hehe.