How Bowls are made? Manufacturing of bowls has become very high tech compared to the methods used in the days when a bowl was made from wood.
Our Black bowls start life as a grey powder with a dye added to make them black.
While our coloured bowls are made from Melamine which starts life as a colour crystal…the crystal being the colour of the bowl…so the colour is right through.
"One Australian manufacturer uses dye to make coloured bowls... this process appears to be very prone to fading and changing colour due to our many hot sunny days… while the Taylor method of of using the very tough Melamine coloured crystals appears to resist fading or colour change for many years." |
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The raw materials are then weighed very carefully for the various sizes and models.
Using a high frequency pre heater the granules are then melted down to form a putty like substance which is then poured into a mould that resembles the shape of the bowl.We have different moulds for the various bowls.
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A 150 ton press compresses the material when excess gas and liquid is squeezed out of the mould.Some of the excess remains on the bowl and this is cut off later in the process by a very hot knife….this is the ring one sees around the centre of the bowl. Bowls are made in one piece.Lugs remain on both sides of the bowls ready for the next tooling operation.However the bowl must first cure and this can take up to 10 days.
Once cured the bowls is ultrasonically tested to check for air bubbles (trapped gas)which if found means this bowl is completely discarded as waste.
On the extremely rare occasions that the machine misses a bubble, on the green one will hear a hollow sound when this bowl is hit by another.We then replace the entire set. |
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After this important process the bowl goes to the diamond bit lathe. Once mounted a specific computer programme for the bias of this particular bowl is punched in and the lathe cuts the bias in seconds with extreme precision.Thus one can be very confident every Vector VS, Lazer, Pinnacle, Redline or XTL is virtually the same as every other Vector VS, Lazer, Pinnacle, Redline and XTL.
Each manufacturers bias is unique,unless one has our computer programme the features of a specific model cannot be copied. The Computer programmes we use are all designed in full conjunction with the world’s best and most experienced bowlers so that we have bowls that will be suitable for all types of greens, weather conditions and for the more than 30 countries they are exported to. Thus one can be assured bowls sold in New Zealand by ComfiPro are for New Zealand |
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Now the bowls will have either dimples or rings cut in. A cutting/drilling machine holds the bowl with suction and rings and these are cut very accurately or dimples are drilled all at once for accuracy.
The bowl is beginning to like a bowl but is unpolished. A highly trained and experienced person now matches 4 bowls by weight…an allowance of 3 gms is permitted over a set. The bowls are then carefully marked with a code and travel around the factory in a set. |
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At this point the first table test occurs to see the bowls conform with the master bowl (which incidentally Taylor make).The bowls are adjusted if found to be short of or over bias…both a very rare occurrence due to the accuracy of the cutting machine. |
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After this important test the set is placed in a large drum filled with silicone chips.The drum rotates gently polishing the bowl to a high gloss. |
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Then comes the engraving…a lazer machine engraves all 4 bowls at the same time according to pre loaded programmes.
The bowls are then sent to the paint shop where each bowl is handpainted.
Further table testing is carried out to again check the bias against the master bowl…after which the bowls are packed ready for despatch to the various countries around the world. |
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Taylor are by far the world’s largest manufacturer of bowls so, tongue in cheek, when Henselite in their advertising say Henselite No.1 in the World we would like to know what they are referring to as it may not be bowls.