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Tennis Ball Lifespan (Read 3668 times)
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Joined Nov. 1, 2006  Luke
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Re: Tennis Ball Lifespan
Reply #15 - Jun 25th, 2007 at 4:19am
 
Finally got around to trying the suggestion of injecting tennis ball with water. The results are FANTASTIC.

There was a little leakage at first but the hole seems to have self sealed and very little water comes out now. The improvement in slinging performance is huge. Not only does the ball fly better, but it is easier to "feel" giving better accuracy. The ball still bounces well, which I consider a plus as it returns when thrown against a brick wall, and shows no signs of rupturing. Just top up the water from time to time till the ball weighs whatever you consider to be the optimum.

The only weird thing is buying a needle and syringe so you can, "inject tennis balls with water!!??"
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Curious Aardvark
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Re: Tennis Ball Lifespan
Reply #16 - Jun 25th, 2007 at 7:04am
 
hmm, so if you only partly fill the ball, won't you get some sort of unbalanced spin ?
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Joined Nov. 1, 2006  Luke
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Re: Tennis Ball Lifespan
Reply #17 - Jun 26th, 2007 at 3:51am
 
No it doesn't. The water must just slosh around in there. I only put in about 50 ml to roughly double the weight, ie. less than half full. I could not detect any unevenness in the flight of the ball. Initally there was some seepage but the hole seems to have completely self-sealed overnight and did not even feel at all wet when subjected to another pounding today. And yes there is still water in there because I can feel and hear it.
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Curious Aardvark
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Re: Tennis Ball Lifespan
Reply #18 - Jun 27th, 2007 at 6:37am
 
I answered my own question as soon as I logged off last night.
Because of the spin the water will get evenly distributed around the interior of the tennis ball.
It would be interesting to introduce a susbstance into the interior of a tennis ball that would set into a lump. That would give an egocentric wobble which would make things interesting :-)

maybe a decent amount of pva glue and just leave it overnight to set in a lump.
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Do All things with Honour and Generosity: Regret Nothing, Envy None, Apologise Seldom and Bow your head to No One  - works for me Smiley
 
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Joined Nov. 1, 2006  Luke
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Re: Tennis Ball Lifespan
Reply #19 - Jun 28th, 2007 at 7:24am
 
C-A,

Probably won't have time to try it before next RO's but was considering using gelatine. It would be easy to inject whilst still warm and then set. Should stop even slight seepage. Don't know if it will go off with time. Wife not overly keen on my keeping tennis balls in the fridge.
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jeordie
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Re: Tennis Ball Lifespan
Reply #20 - Jul 7th, 2007 at 6:53pm
 
I find that age, dogs and lawnmowers Cheesy are the only things that deflate tennis balls. ;
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