Can someone suggest where I can get a used ball spinner or plans on how to build one yourself?

Also what to look for when you are in the market to buy, I don't want to buy a cheap imitation that will break after a few uses?

A couple of months ago, I was in the market for a spinner. After reading several positive comments about the Vertex spinner on the ASB newsgroup and the "coverstock preparation forum" of [Banned-URL].com, I went ahead a bought one (although I was worried that I was buying a "cheap imitation" as you mentioned).

The Vertex spinner has been great! It has a sturdy metal base and does not wobble while the ball is spinning. It spins at 450 RPM, which seems to be "just enough" for my purposes.

In addition to routine cleaning and polishing, I was able to sand out all of the Track scratches from a couple of balls, and they came out "like new."

Anyway, I've only had the spinner a couple of months, so I don't know about how well it will do over the long haul, but it certainly seems to be well built; I expect it to last a good long time.

Hello "old",

I have a spinner from Donkee in my house and it does quite well for my purposes. It does wobble a little bit on high RPM's. I have the biggest one they have, and have done a lot of full resurfaces, to mine, my wifes, and teammates equipment. I've had it now for six months, and I've definately got my moneys worth. It has worked very well, and with the large one, the splash guard was free. I don't recall if it still is. Innovativebowling also has one out that works quite well, but is a little more expensive.

Hello,

I got the plans for mine off ebay. It took me a couple of months to acquire everything needed (working on it part time), but the assembly only took me two evenings in my garage. It works great, variable in speed from about 400-900 rpm. It cost me about sixty bucks to get all the stuff necessary to build it. A friend of mine has the vertex model, and I like mine much better.

take care,

Jim

I built one from scratch. I had used a donkee for a while but wanted something more heavy duty.

I used a dryer motor, ordered a conical bearing and a needle bearing and a couple of other little pieces from McMaster Carr and used some square-stock metal (and a friend who is a welder) and built it.

I like it far better than the donkee. It doesn't wobble PERIOD. I've put the most non-round-core ball in the worst possible orientation in order to try to get it to wobble. Nada.

Does anyone have plans for a spinner that they'd like to share? I'm interested in building one, but I don't have a lot of confidence in my ability to judge how strong it needs to be.

When I was looking into it, I compared the prices of all the components to build one, and it was more expensive to build a good one, than buy one.

You could scrounge around and get lucky finding materials to build with. But for the price of a new ball you can buy one. For about 1 1/2 times the price of a new ball you can get a really good, two speed, heavy duty spinner.

I can get a free used motor no problem, and I know a guy who has two(2) CNC machines in his basement, so I think I'd be able to do this fairly cheaply..

No real need for a CNC machine....

You need a heavy steel plate for the base, have it bent on all four sides so you have a recess to house the pulleys & belt, have the corners welded so it wont spring. Put some heavy duty shock mount feet on it. Drill it so the motor can be mounted shaft down, you'll need a totally enclosed motor. You'll will need a mandrel with the bearings loaded to take heavy end thrust and side load. Calculate the pully sizes to give you about 480 RPM on the bowl. Devise a belt tensioning device. Build or buy a metal or heavy plastic bowl to hold the ball. Treat the lip with some type of soft yet durable material so it wont mar the ball. Build a splash shield kind of in the shape of a fruit basket to catch the waste product slung off with the water. Oh and make sure the motor and all electrical components are waterproof. As well as all lubricated shafts and bearings.

Or order one online for around $150, and just plug it in....

I'm also in the market, my Pro Shop is now charging $4 a ball to clean them. OK plus I like to tinker with surface finishes.Has anyone seen one for under $160?

Just add about 30 bucks and you can get one form Donkee.com. I bought the 1/3 hp model and it works just great.

Vertex Mold is cheaper.

but they get you in the shipping

I have a Donkee 2 speed spinner and I think it was one of the best investments that I could have made. If I decided to charge my friends for the work that I do for them I could have paid for it already! It is a good investment if you plan to use it.

Hey Group,
When you use them do you also use water at the same time?? what exactly is the correct process for re-surfacing a ball?

Thanks

Well I worked in a Pro Shop for awhile, and the way i was taught to resurface a ball was 1. you do need water so you dont eat away your coverstock. 2. Sand the ball on four sides which would be with the CG up, Then flip it to where the fingers and thunb are down. Then from there flip it on its side. then flip it over again so its on the other side.

General question here.

I had my TS&A resurfaced a week ago. Box specs called for 400 grit finish. The Pro Shop said that with the age and use of the ball, he would take it down to 250.

I now find this ball has renewed hook, but too much.

Can I lessen the friction by going in reverse by resanding back to, say 600?

I wouldn't have dropped it that much. I would've brought it back to 320. 600 will be higher than the box finish, and thus will have more skid than fresh out of the box.

Thanks Brian. Since, my guy does it for free, and lets a counter kid do it, I think the kid was having trouble finding the right grit emory to bring it down. He settled on 250, which is what he could find. I just have to take some off to lessen the friction.

Yeah, just bump it up to 320. You could even hit it with a red Scotch Brite pad dry and it will be around 320.

I also purchased the Donkee. On low rpms it spins smoothly, but on high rpms has a good bit of wobble. Doesn't really bother me as I only use high rpm to polish, but I imagine it might annoy others. As others have said that the Vertex doesn't wobble I kinda wish I got that one. Live and learn.

I have a Vertex spinner, and depending on the ball orientation it will wobble also. Nothing I worry about though. It works quite well.

Well from the research I've done, the Vertex is spinning only around 435-450 rpm's. And the Donkee spins at 475 and 675 rpm's. And I've only heard that the Donkee wobbles at the higher speed. Sounds as if the Vertex might have some wobble depending on where the top weight is oriented at its one speed of 435+ rpm. So if the Vertex was capable of hitting the 675 rpm's that the Donkee is hitting it would most likely be a bad wobbler too. Donkee seems to be the only one with the splash guard, and I really don't have a $35+ need for a foot control pedal. So as soon as the Donkee's 3/4 hp are back in stock, I think this will be my choice.

i haven't found one for less $240.00 if someone has seen a ball spinner for $160.00 please give up the location. if someone has plans to build one i would like for them to share the plans with me. thanks

Brian-

Do you have a source for the different color 3M pads with reasonable prices?

Read

where can you get a spinner for $160.00?

I haven't seen any for $160. The least expensive I have found is $199, both Donkee and Vertex Mold have one for that price. I've never used any of those so can't say if they are any good, but I do believe in general you get what you pay for. If you aren't going to be using it but a few times a year, then an inexpensive spinner will probably be fine. If you are going to use it frequently spend the extra money and get a good, heavy duty spinner with a heavy metal base and metal ball cup. Then offer to your fellow bowlers to clean / sand / polish their balls for them for $3 or $5 to help offset the cost.

I totaly agree about getting what you pay for...
I have a motor and I think I can build one for a fraction of the price of a donkee and a vertex. If all works well I will post how I did it and all of us can enjoy the use of a good ball spinner.

I just made a spinner using a table top drill press. With some modifications the total cost was about $75.00. Variable speed and minimal wobble. Looks good and works great. Anybody want more info I can take pics.

That would be great!

I was just at a salvage type place today. They had an electric motor that would probably have had plenty of power. Everything else I've read here though seems to suggest I would need some welding prowess, which I don't have. Does the drill press solution assemble easily?

The drill press idea works great. No welding invoved.
If I could load some pics I would, but I'm having trouble doing that. For now I will try to explain the process. The bench top drill press comes with a stand and the motor drill assembly. I turned the motor drill assembly upside down with the shaft which holds the chuck face up. I did not use the chuck. The shaft holds the plate which the bowl will sit on. Since this plate needs a hole directly centered and that fits on the shaft, I used a solid pulley with the same diameter as the shaft. The stainless steel bowl then is bolted to the pulley. The pulley is used for convenience and is only used to hold the bowl.
Now the tough part. The whole motor asembly which now has the bowl mounted on to it should be placed on the stand. The stand consists of a steel pole and the base. It also has a work platform that connects to the pole. This work platform will support the motor assembly. The motor assembly can fit onto the pole but it won't go all the way down to the platform. A hole using a hole drill must be cut through the covering. This covering is thin metal and houses the two pulleys and the belt that turns the whole contraption. Once this hole is drilled the motor assembly can be lowered all the way down to the base. Then, the pole can be measured and cut flush with the motor assembly. The idea is to get the bowl posotioned perfectly centered on the pulley(plate). This is the best I can do right now. I already resurfaced one ball using those new sanding pads and it turned out great. When the balls weight block is not centered, and this will happen as you turn the ball over, I did get some wobble. I ended up bolting the machine to my work table with good results. The drill press cost me about $70.00 and the stainless steel bowl cost $12.00. I had all the bolts and drills and everything else. So for less than $100.00 I got myself a spinner that works very well. ASk me specifics. Maybe you guys have an idea better than this.

Thanks for the info, but it's hard to see without pics. Can you load them to someplace like http://www.flickr.com and then link them?

Again, thanks for putting this together!

I will try tonight. Can HTML be enabled. Maybe that is the problem.

You can use UBB Code. It's like HTML, but it's not . If you have a link to an image, you put [ img ] Link_to_pic [ /img ] around it, without the spaces within the tag.

you lost me on the tough part... making the work stand. try to get those pics up. can u still use the varialble speed on the drill press?

Explain the UBB again. You can still use a variable speed by changing the belt on the pulleys which are inside the cover. Pictures will explain everything.

i thought that was the way you would change the speed. were you able to upload the pics? i think i understand now about mounting it on the pole, but i still would like to see some images.

If you upload the photos to another site, you can link them here with the UBB code I explained. You can also click on the "Enter an Image" button to link to an image that's hosted somewhere else.

For the UBB code, you have the link to an image (like http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TM5SC72TL._AA280_.jpg ). You then put the "image" tags around it to make it appear like this



If you quote my message, you'll see exactly what it looks like.

HEY! You're pretty smart. That sounds lots easier than the stuff necessary to embed an image while posting and you could (presumably) edit in text around the images as well, no?

Yep, you can put whatever you want, wherever you want.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23024799@N08/archives/date-posted/2008/01/19/

Here some pics for the Keglndude Spinner. Any questions just ask.

Awsome job, that thing is wicked. Great enginuaty and skill. I bought a drill press just like that and i would like to know how many amps does your motor pull? It should be listed on the press somewhere. thanks and again great job!!!!

Keglndude, your spinner looks great, however I think I would add a shield around the motor or seal it somehow. In order to resurface your balls, you will be using copious amounts of water. It will get thrown everywhere, including into the openings in the motor. This can/will cause serious issues with shorting, shocking, and at the extreme, electrocution.

edited...

got any pics of where you had to modify the housing?

A "step by step" with pics would probably make you the darling of the DIY bowling world.

New pics with descriptions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23024799@N08/archives/date-posted/2008/01/19/

You'll want to make sure there's a heavy duty rubber edging around the cup so the ball doesn't slip while appying pressure and get the ball all scratched up

I had some nice weatherstripping that worked real nice.

Those are the same pics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23024799@N08/archives/date-posted/2008/

If this doesn't work click on January

Don't know the amps but they are all pretty much the same, unless you bought a heavy duty model. The one I purchased is 1/3 HP. Really wanted 1/2 HP but this one seems to do the job.

thanks for the reply...

New to forum. I happen to have a bench top drill press and was wondering why I could not just put the motor and head assembly upside down on my work bench and chuck in a bowl with a bit shank attached ? Why did you not use the chuck?

GG

I don't see why you couldn't do that. I liked the idea of it being mounted. I'll tell you thou, this thing is sweet. I have used it numerous times already with great results. As far as using the chuck........I thought that I wanted the bowl to be closer to the base and thus would have less wobble. If you use the chuck assembly the bowl will be about 2-3" above the base. Be my guest and try it. Just let me know cause I plan on making more. Thanks for the interest.

Keglndude

Just make sure you tighten the chuck with a chuck key before each use so you don't loose a limb, we don't need industrial accidents on this site. I don't want to see a post that starts off with, I tore my thumb off in a drill press I was using as a spinner, any ideas as to how to bowl league tonight?