How many of the Ball Drills in use in Australia can't do all of that either, Tonx? Get real!
Not everyone's using a woodwork drill, Jim. And the good pro shops use gear that can do that. Mine can. No sweat. Because it’s not a drill. It’s a mill. It’s 2HP motor is rated to drive an 1¼” bit through mild steel and it’s 3” front post/ 5” rear post configuration can deal with the lateral forces to cut 1” slots in mild steel. It has Accu-Rite Digital readouts, calibrated to 1/1000”. The Ovalmatic jig, as used on the PBA tour truck (granted, mine’s an older model these days) pivots the ball about dead centre, so I can hit spans dead on without adjusting pitch. I scribe a line (about 1/64” thick) and after drilling an oval thumb hole can pick whether to hit it in the centre, top or bottom edge of that line.
That's getting real!
The jig in question is an interesting product and quite clever. Nice work. It is definitely for the "tinkerers" among us though and obviously does not compare to serious equipment. And that's ok. It's obviously not meant to.
The trouble is that Joe Bowler doesn’t know the difference. He's probably so used to having gear that doesn't fit that he doesn't see the point in getting good work done and doesn’t want to pay for it either.
Which brings us to the price question. To make any money in a pro-shop, you simply must charge more than in the US, where turnover is much greater.
There are pro-shops in the US that turn over more balls than any distributor in this country. Read that again and soak it in. Think, actually think about the ramifications that kind of turnover brings to your pro-shop business model. Now think again about the dis-economies of scale that exist in a small Australian pro-shop.
And every pro shop is small in this country.
And before some clown comes in with the patently not-thought-through argument of "Aw, you just need to get competitive...", go and price the cost of your new wonder ball from bowlingstuff.com, including freight and drilling and if you're a couple of bucks ahead, you're lucky, but you have no warranty on either the ball or the drillling. Then go and cost the set-up costs of a real pro shop here, then price the importation of gear, including freight, GST, brokerage and anything else that comes along. Then add rent into the equation. And maybe if you're feeling benevolent, the odd bit of profit to eat with. It's staggering how much money you throw into a quality pro shop to get it running.
Every good pro shop in this country is competitive. It's just that there are a lot of people out there who think that they’re very clever because they got something cheap. Sometimes, it’s genuinely cheaper, but I cannot tell you how many times some guy has given me a proud recitation of how cheap they got a ball, then when I dig a little about freight, inserts and drilling, I discover that he could have bought it from me at the same price or even less in some cases.
If there’s one thing I learned in life, it’s that
you get what you pay for. If it’s cheap, it’s either on clearance or likely to be aimed at a thoughtless market too lazy to look beyond price.
And competing on price is a mug’s game. Ask any good tradesman.
Go and buy a top quality driver off the shelf and see what you'll pay. If you get it from a real pro shop they’ll carefully help you pick the right one and any custom work required usually goes on top, which is fair enough. A bit more for a better result. A good bowling pro shop will help you select the right ball according to surface, core RG & differential, map it according to your PAP, taking into consideration finer points of surface adjustment, pin, MB and x-hole placement and dimensions to see how it affects the finished RG and differential of the ball. They will painstakingly fit the ball and note it all down for your next visit. That’s why a first performance ball fitting and drilling in my pro-shop takes 1½ hrs from go to whoa. You get this (plus slug and grips) included in the price I quote you up front. It’s about whether you want quality work or cheap work. Mine’s guaranteed, by the way.
And for the record, 3 3/8” is only leverage in an un-drilled, symmetric-cored ball. It shifts once you put holes in it, when of course it's no longer symmetrical. In fact, it's not a terribly useful layout these days.
Any fool can get balls in and plenty do. There's a constant turnover of guys getting gear in, selling it for a meat pie's worth of margin, realising a few months later that it's just way too much work for too little return, but they've painted themselves into a corner by starting cheap and have attracted the wrong customer base, so they go do something else. The same thing happens in “pro shops” that drill balls for $30 (or less) in 10 minutes. You get what you pay for. Funnily enough, the stress of tight time frames and the lack of respect that the resultant poor work generates turns people off wanting to do it and whether they stick around or not, they lose interest, as they don't have the control over the role they'd like. Some folks sadly believe that you can layout and drill a performance ball in 20 minutes. I feel sorry for their customers who are paying good money for a ball to be slapped up.
If it's not right, you've paid too much, regardless of the price.
I'm very sad to hear that Tonx is pulling down his shingle. Another casualty of the cheap bowling ball "shops". As Chris Barnes reportedly once said "You can't out-bowl a bad grip." It's the experience, expertise, machinery and commitment to excellence that you pay for in a good pro shop.
On the other hand, there's not too many drillers I'd send folks to in this country. But Tonx is one. And now he's gone to get a life because he can't make it work by basing his business model on producing a quality product, because so many thoughtless people want the cheapest thing they can lay their hands on. Look within. You'll know who you are.
Well done. You must be so proud of yourselves.
