BLUDWORTH vs DIAMOND vs BALLSTAR BALL CLEANERS

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
...
Bludworth - has been around for years. They are very loud -
...And it is dangerous. Wait until a ball 'jumps' and gets caught between the platter and the body. It is destroyed in seconds.

And they have atendency to jump because the platter will wobble.



Diamond - bigger motor and runs off of bearings and pulleys. Much quieter. you can put your finger into the spinning balls and they stop (not the platter - just the balls. 2 offset platter with 8 balls each does all 16 balls at once. You can run this machine for days and it will not overheat or fail. We use it to do all the balls at our tournaments - sometimes 300 tables.

I am affiliated with Diamond so I am biased. But I have owned pool rooms since 1969 and know what works. Before Diamond, the Porper polisher was the best out there.

Mark Griffin
I have a set of TV Aramiths that I put in a good friend's Blud machine and it chewed up some of them. I was inwardly pissed at the disaster/ favor and my buddy offered to replace the balls or give me his Centennials (I refused both:().

I bought the Diamond and after 5 yrs of hand polishing, I can honestly say it was worth every penny.

Griffin- not hard to stand behind the best, is it?
 

sfleinen

14.1 & One Pocket Addict
Gold Member
Silver Member
One of these days Mark, I'm goin to design and build a polisher with 8 platters mounted on a red rider wagon just for you:D

And that Red Rider will have an "Alaska or bust" bumper sticker plastered on the side, with a boombox duct-tape to its side playing the Johnny Horton song, "North to Alaska."

:p

-Sean
 

john schmidt

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
hi

those are all great polishers and they should be for 4-5 hundred.
i build them and sell them for 80 and mine last years and years .they do all 16 balls at once,weight like 3 pounds and are quiet.
i quit making them due to no interest so i guess people would rather spend 500.

next someone will come on here and say mine dont work but trust me i used my own for four years no problem.
furthermore most people know im a stickler for the balls playing right and i get that with my homemade cleaner.
 

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
those are all great polishers and they should be for 4-5 hundred.
i build them and sell them for 80 and mine last years and years .they do all 16 balls at once,weight like 3 pounds and are quiet.
i quit making them due to no interest so i guess people would rather spend 500.

next someone will come on here and say mine dont work but trust me i used my own for four years no problem.
furthermore most people know im a stickler for the balls playing right and i get that with my homemade cleaner.

Have you ever posted a pic? When I was doing my researce, I certainly was aware you had offered polishers to AZB but could not find evidence they were mre than little bucket/ buffer jobs.

All 16 at once and quiet suggests it would be incorrect to lump your in with the bucket jobbies.

I work hard for my $ and seek maximum value for my $, be it $20 or $2000. I would certainly prefer to spend the lower $amount, all other factors being equal/
 

john schmidt

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
hi

Have you ever posted a pic? When I was doing my researce, I certainly was aware you had offered polishers to AZB but could not find evidence they were mre than little bucket/ buffer jobs.

All 16 at once and quiet suggests it would be incorrect to lump your in with the bucket jobbies.

I work hard for my $ and seek maximum value for my $, be it $20 or $2000. I would certainly prefer to spend the lower $amount, all other factors being equal/

i feel ya on price.
thing is those r great polishers especially for industrial use like tourneys poolhall etc.
i feel though its overengineering.

at a tourney for example the polishers there are big and heavy so u have to take balls from table ,walk over to machine,wait,take them back and repeat for say 16 tables.takes so long nobody wants to bother with it.

mine weighs 3 pounds and with extention cord walk over to each table,polish balls for say 60 seconds,go to next table.
balls never leave table.
so honestly my cleaner is more practical for home use or tourney play .
those 500 dollar machines r awesome and work great i just feel its overkill in weight,size,mobility,cost,etc.
if i got say 20 orders i would go buy supplies in bulk and make them but i get asked every 2 months for 1 so its not practical for me to do it.
if i see you at tourney ill be happy to explain to u my way .ive built many so i think i do good job.

if i remember right u dont think to highly of me but thats water under bridge and ill help u if i can.
 

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
...if i remember right u dont think to highly of me but thats water under bridge and ill help u if i can.

Absolutely not true, sorry if I gave that indication in the past...glad to hear I can be off your schmidt list. You seem like an a-ok dude to me, irrespective of how well you play pool.

And you play pretty good pool and have been able to tranlate that into a life where you aren't sitting at a desk all day. makes me a little envious, but some gotta work for a living, some gotta play for a living. Whatcha gonna do?
 

JolietJames

Boot Party Coordinator
Silver Member
I plan on making some ball polishers later this year for my friends and perhaps to sell as well. I've drawn up the plans and will be making mine out of aluminum with motors and gears in the overkill range but I'll try to keep them under the weight of the Bludworths I have.
 

mrpiper

Registered
Please help bring this thread up to date! I have decided to buy a ball cleaner for home use.

I am NOT interested in building a bucket cleaner that clacks the balls together and speeds the wear on the finish over time.

I am willing to pay what is required for one of the better products. Here is what we now have in the market today:

Bludworth Now $595.00 16 ball capacity
Diamond Now $500.00 + $135 shipping for 8 ball capacity. $750 for 16 ball
Ballstar Now $525.00 with free ship from BilliardWarehouse 8 ball capacity
CleanGleem Now $499.00 w/ free ship for 16 ball capacity $349.00 for 8 ball capacity but currently out of stock
Bludworth The "Alibaba" knockoff is available for $300.00

I am pretty sold on either Diamond, Ballstar or CleanGleem. If they were all FREE I would be trying to decide between Diamond and Ballstar.

Diamond: Amazing universally positive reviews. Everyone raves about the great job it does and the quality, but it's H U G E ! and HEAVY!
Ballstar: Cleans balls on forward cycle and then reverses and polishes on backward cycle so it does a 2 step process that makes sense. It is also much smaller and can fit on a small table.
CleanGleem: I just can't get past the company's own video where you can see the balls mostly run on a single axis in a straight line. I keep thinking I may not be happy with the cleaning quality, but I keep coming back to it for the great price.

Is there really any difference between these three in how well they clean and polish? Particularly I would like to hear from more people here who have experience with BOTH CleanGleem AND one of the others to compare to.

Thanks all for your experience and advice.
 

loggerhead12

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
The Diamond is one of those purchases you make once and never, ever regret. No one who owns one has anything negative to say about it. It's a piece of furniture that cleans your balls. What else can you ask for? Of course it's expensive to ship. It's heavy. Couches are expensive to ship too.
 

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The Diamond is one of those purchases you make once and never, ever regret. No one who owns one has anything negative to say about it. It's a piece of furniture that cleans your balls. What else can you ask for? Of course it's expensive to ship. It's heavy. Couches are expensive to ship too.
I got 25+ years out of my Bludworth polisher, but I just ordered a Diamond 16 ball unit. Mainly because I finally figured out an ideal place to permanently keep it in our pool room, which is a spot that hadn’t occurred to me before now.

I’ll keep the Bludworth in our storage room as a back up, and for when a customer with a home table brings in their old dingy set of balls for us to spin. Yes, I’m looking forward to receiving the Diamond unit.
 

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
Please help bring this thread up to date! I have decided to buy a ball cleaner for home use.

I am NOT interested in building a bucket cleaner that clacks the balls together and speeds the wear on the finish over time.

I am willing to pay what is required for one of the better products. Here is what we now have in the market today:

Bludworth Now $595.00 16 ball capacity
Diamond Now $500.00 + $135 shipping for 8 ball capacity. $750 for 16 ball
Ballstar Now $525.00 with free ship from BilliardWarehouse 8 ball capacity
CleanGleem Now $499.00 w/ free ship for 16 ball capacity $349.00 for 8 ball capacity but currently out of stock
Bludworth The "Alibaba" knockoff is available for $300.00

I am pretty sold on either Diamond, Ballstar or CleanGleem. If they were all FREE I would be trying to decide between Diamond and Ballstar.

Diamond: Amazing universally positive reviews. Everyone raves about the great job it does and the quality, but it's H U G E ! and HEAVY!
Ballstar: Cleans balls on forward cycle and then reverses and polishes on backward cycle so it does a 2 step process that makes sense. It is also much smaller and can fit on a small table.
CleanGleem: I just can't get past the company's own video where you can see the balls mostly run on a single axis in a straight line. I keep thinking I may not be happy with the cleaning quality, but I keep coming back to it for the great price.

Is there really any difference between these three in how well they clean and polish? Particularly I would like to hear from more people here who have experience with BOTH CleanGleem AND one of the others to compare to.

Thanks all for your experience and advice.
Ballstar, cleans clockwise, then polishes counter clockwise, really? If you wax on clockwise, clean. Then wax off counter clockwise, shine.....how are you doing that with the same rag, just reversing its direction???? Ballstar is all about SALES, the Diamond ball polisher is all about genuine end results, and built to never wear out! Of its tp heavy for anyone😅 put some damn caster wheels on the bottom of it😅🤣😂
 

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
hi



i feel ya on price.
thing is those r great polishers especially for industrial use like tourneys poolhall etc.
i feel though its overengineering.

at a tourney for example the polishers there are big and heavy so u have to take balls from table ,walk over to machine,wait,take them back and repeat for say 16 tables.takes so long nobody wants to bother with it.

mine weighs 3 pounds and with extention cord walk over to each table,polish balls for say 60 seconds,go to next table.
balls never leave table.
so honestly my cleaner is more practical for home use or tourney play .
those 500 dollar machines r awesome and work great i just feel its overkill in weight,size,mobility,cost,etc.
if i got say 20 orders i would go buy supplies in bulk and make them but i get asked every 2 months for 1 so its not practical for me to do it.
if i see you at tourney ill be happy to explain to u my way .ive built many so i think i do good job.

if i remember right u dont think to highly of me but thats water under bridge and ill help u if i can.
A smart room owner would have extra sets of balls, then uses those balls to trade out the balls to be polished. But while on that subject, what pool room owner leaves the balls on the tables, don't they all get returned to the checkout counter, then all polished before being put away?
 

Shuddy

Diamond Dave’s babysitter
Silver Member
A smart room owner would have extra sets of balls, then uses those balls to trade out the balls to be polished. But while on that subject, what pool room owner leaves the balls on the tables, don't they all get returned to the checkout counter, then all polished before being put away?
In my part of the world, and neighboring countries, when a table is finished, an employee usually comes, wipes down the rails and cloth, gives the balls a quick hand clean, and reracks the table ready for the next customer. We also have little gadgets attached to the wall near each table. You press a button to start your table timer, and again when you finish. And as a side note, solo play is basically always free unless all tables are taken.
 

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
In my part of the world, and neighboring countries, when a table is finished, an employee usually comes, wipes down the rails and cloth, gives the balls a quick hand clean, and reracks the table ready for the next customer. We also have little gadgets attached to the wall near each table. You press a button to start your table timer, and again when you finish. And as a side note, solo play is basically always free unless all tables are taken.
Just curious, what part of the world/countries/cities are you referring to? I would guess what you are describing happens in very few if any public pool rooms in the US.
 

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
Just curious, what part of the world/countries/cities are you referring to? I would guess what you are describing happens in very few if any public pool rooms in the US.
Was going to ask the same thing. Only place I know of like that is Brother's Billiards in Billings, MT but its still a members only club.
 

bbb

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Please help bring this thread up to date! I have decided to buy a ball cleaner for home use.

I am NOT interested in building a bucket cleaner that clacks the balls together and speeds the wear on the finish over time.

I am willing to pay what is required for one of the better products. Here is what we now have in the market today:

Bludworth Now $595.00 16 ball capacity
Diamond Now $500.00 + $135 shipping for 8 ball capacity. $750 for 16 ball
Ballstar Now $525.00 with free ship from BilliardWarehouse 8 ball capacity
CleanGleem Now $499.00 w/ free ship for 16 ball capacity $349.00 for 8 ball capacity but currently out of stock
Bludworth The "Alibaba" knockoff is available for $300.00

I am pretty sold on either Diamond, Ballstar or CleanGleem. If they were all FREE I would be trying to decide between Diamond and Ballstar.

Diamond: Amazing universally positive reviews. Everyone raves about the great job it does and the quality, but it's H U G E ! and HEAVY!
Ballstar: Cleans balls on forward cycle and then reverses and polishes on backward cycle so it does a 2 step process that makes sense. It is also much smaller and can fit on a small table.
CleanGleem: I just can't get past the company's own video where you can see the balls mostly run on a single axis in a straight line. I keep thinking I may not be happy with the cleaning quality, but I keep coming back to it for the great price.

Is there really any difference between these three in how well they clean and polish? Particularly I would like to hear from more people here who have experience with BOTH CleanGleem AND one of the others to compare to.

Thanks all for your experience and advice.
I would suggest you re-evaluate bludworth in your review
I have one for almost 10 years and my pool room uses one also
does a terrific job
 
Last edited:

Shuddy

Diamond Dave’s babysitter
Silver Member
Was going to ask the same thing. Only place I know of like that is Brother's Billiards in Billings, MT but its still a members only club.
I’m in South Korea. Japan does something very similar minus the free solo play.

Edit: Though in Japan they give you a hot wet hand towel when you finish playing. I’d probably still take the free solo play.
 
Last edited:

TommyT

Obsessed
Silver Member
I have a Bludworth and I replaced the pad and felt around the balls. Along with the Bludworth polish I can’t imagine anything doing better.
 
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