Cutting up a Bowling Ball

[Scratch]

My Son recently gave me a Bowling Ball that a friend gave him.
The reason he gave it to me was it has a very large crack in it and is unusable. I'm thinking of cutting it up into pen blanks. I don't have a band saw but I do have a table saw and a chain saw. Most bb's made nowadays
have some sort of core to them and I'm leery of trying to cut it with a chain saw. Has anyone ever cut up a Bowling ball?
Thanks, Scratch

 

[jchurch]

I wouldn't

Howdy! unless they make some different than others, the outside skin is too thin for pen blanks. I ruined a decent bandsaw blade, and made a monumental mess cutting up 2 balls a while back.
just my 2 cents worth,
Jim

 

[ldb2000]

Before you ruin any blades or get yourself hurt trying this I suggest you do a search of the site about cutting up bowling balls . It's been done before and some of the tries were not to successful and even the successful ones were not what was expected .

 

[nava1uni]

You might want to send Bruce119 about this process. He has done what you are looking to do and even sold blanks here on IAP. He cast the bits in PR and made very cool blanks.

 

[phillywood]

Before you ruin any blades or get yourself hurt trying this I suggest you do a search of the site about cutting up bowling balls . It's been done before and some of the tries were not to successful and even the successful ones were not what was expected .

I did what buth suggested and from what I read you need tothink this twice. Your fingers or head or chest is not worth it to do this. Just go to counter top instalation companies asnd ask for their scraps.

 

[Rfturner]

NOT SAFE, The ONLY way it is relatively safe is if you use a bandsaw and a jig even then it is not really safe, it is still really dangerous. it is practically suicide to even attempt to cut it on a table saw. I would hold off on cutting it until you do your research.

 

[bruce119]

Yea I chopped up a lot of bowling balls. I still got about 30 of them in the back yard. I destroyed 3 saws that summer. When I first started I used a chainsaw to 1/2 them. Depending on the ball I mite get though 2 before I had to sharpen. Then there where some the saw would just go through the outer layer and that was it. Eventually I found the best way is a chop saw I modified a chop saw so I could cut the ball up into strips like slicing a watermelon. Also think concrete with bits of metal. Once I got the 1" slices. I would take it the band saw and cut away the core. Sparks would fly so your going to bugger up your blade. Then I would take that to the round end of a belt sander and clean up the rest of the core. Then you cut it to size some you can heat and straighten most will crack. Alice has a tutorial in the library about bowling balls.

Just be careful they are dangerous and everyone is different.

good luck

 

[Craftdiggity]

Why not take it outside and smash it on the ground a few times until the pieces are more manageable? Then you might be able to more safely cut those pieces on the TS or BS.

 

[arioux]

In the library, in the 2005 articles.

http://content.penturners.org/articles/2005/cuttingbowlingballs.pdf

 

[Scratch]

Thanks for the replies. After reading the tutorial,
I don't think it's worth the risk. Into the garbage it went.
Thanks Again,
Scratch

 

[Paul in OKC]

I use a horizontal cut off saw for metal cutting. Works well with a little set up.

 

[PenMan1]

IF I ever even considered doing this, again, I would start by putting on a full-face motorcycle helmet, long pants and boots. Then I would dig a bowl shaped hole in the ground the size of the bowling ball. After that, I would smack the ball a few hundred times with an 8 pound sledge hammer. Once the hammer causes a crack, I would tap in a log splitting wedge and try to seperate the ball just like you would split fire wood.

Then when I got the ball into manageable sized pieces, I would build a jig for my saw, AND THEN GO INSIDE AND RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD BANDSAW BLADE!

GOOD LUCK!