Money saving tips for people who like doing their own ball maintenance

I’ve been bowling for about 3 years now and doing almost all of my own ball work has actually been one of the more fun things about the hobby all together. I have built up a pretty impressive mini pro shop at my house and can pretty much have everything I need outside of drilling and plugging done without needing to go to a pro shop.

The downside of that is the ridiculously inflated prices that everything in the bowling industry gets hit with. In this post I’m gonna list a few things I do to make doing your own ball maintenance more affordable. Some will be super common but hopefully I can put you on to at least one new idea.

Ball Cleaner

This one won’t be new to anyone, but I see no reason to be buying these $17 bottles of windex the bowling industry pushes. Make your own ball cleaner at home. There’s plenty of good formulas out there if you search around. I use one part each of simple green, 70% IPA and water.

Polishing Pads

Fun fact: If you Amazon search “bowling polishing pad”, you will see a singular CTD wool pad for $25.99. However, if you just search “polishing pad”, you will see a 4 pack of the same wool pads plus a drill attachment for $14.99. I have purchased both and I promise they are the same thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were even made in the same factory.

Another option for polishing pads that I’ve recently started getting is this product at Walmart. It’s like $6 and comes with 5 pads and a handle for them, which leads me to my next money saver.

Surface/Polishing Pad Gripper

The handle that comes with the last item I mentioned has Velcro hook and loop connectors, so it will hold not only the pads it comes with, but any other polishing or sanding pads you buy. Or you can spend $40 on this handle from BowlerX.

Sanding Pads

This is one I actually haven’t found a great non-bowling specific alternative for. I’ve tried several but they haven’t been good. So what I do is I still buy the expensive 6” Sia Air pads from Brunswick, but I cut them into fours. It doesn’t really extend my working time much at all if any but it turns a 3 pack of pads into a 12 pack.

Many More Things

There’s a lot more that I’m not going to dive into one-by-one. $15 bottles of super glue, $35 bevel knives, $170 simple dremel tool, way overpriced sanding discs for said dremel tool, etc. Basically just always try to find a non-bowling specific alternative for anything you need in this industry and you’re likely to save a lot of money.

If you have any other money saving alternatives that I didn’t mention please comment them!