Cleaning Balls - Machine vs Hand

I made a bucket cleaner 10 years ago that works great. I learned from someone on here about making a mixture of isopropyl alcohol and aramith ball cleaner in a spray bottle. I give them a little squirt and they look great 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’ve thought about buying a ball star cleaner on amazon but why bother lol
 
As I earlier acknowledged, I have had a BallStar since the early 90’s. It works absolutely great with a 8 ball capacity.
Nonetheless, the Clean Gleem is $200 less, shipping should be less, no tariff surcharges and is American made.

If you ever needed parts, although BallStar is known for its ruggedness & reliability, everything is subject to breakage.
Getting replacements parts, unless some distributor happens to have it which is increasingly rare, will be a real bitch.

Seems like Clean Gleem deserves your consideration if you are looking for a brand new pool ball cleaning machine.
I’m just tickled I got my BallStar long ago and it cost under a couple hundred bucks. It has served me very reliably.
 
Nobody in my generation would even know what this is, and I'm over 40. Everyone wears sneakers now.
HA HA- I saw this at a yard sale and thought " what would I do with it - since leather shoes are past history- and for $1 I bought it thinking- great for billiard ball final buff out as well as pool cue and pool cue buff outs after cleaning and waxing. Actually works great! shoe buffer.jpg
 
I do not have a ball cleaning machine. I had my balls cleaned once at a billiards store that used a machine and I didn't think it was done very good.

So when I clean my balls I use some Aramith Ball Cleaner and put a light coat on the balls. Then after I get all the balls coated I take a dry towel and wipe them off. Then I take a different dry towel and hand clean/buff them again. Seems to work fine.

My question is - would a machine clean the balls better than I do by hand? As we all know clean, polished balls will find the pockets a little better than dirty balls.

r/DCP
You can do it by hand. I would take the time to clean the table first, with damp paper towels, or a clean washcloth. Afterwards, wipe the balls with a couple damp paper towels. You'll hear opinions that say a motorized ball cleaner is the way to go, but I don't think so. Over time, dirt and grit is naturally going to get in that motorized ball cleaner, and wear the balls down some. You don't want that. It takes me a couple minutes to clean the balls with damp paper towels.
 
I do not have a ball cleaning machine. I had my balls cleaned once at a billiards store that used a machine and I didn't think it was done very good.

So when I clean my balls I use some Aramith Ball Cleaner and put a light coat on the balls. Then after I get all the balls coated I take a dry towel and wipe them off. Then I take a different dry towel and hand clean/buff them again. Seems to work fine.

My question is - would a machine clean the balls better than I do by hand? As we all know clean, polished balls will find the pockets a little better than dirty balls.

r/DCP
Yeah, dirty balls really suck. I mean they just do. But be careful whencleaning your balls with ball cleaner, you may get an allergic reaction so I would test spots before I completely covered them in the cleaner. I wouldn't even consider putting them in a machine that could be dangerous and you may not like the outcome. Cleaning them by hand is the best way because they will never be cleaner.

Good luck :ROFLMAO:
 
I clean by hand because I enjoy it.

But I am also one of those weirdos that enjoys cleaning guns after shooting and my own maintenance on cars and motorcycles.

YMMV
 
I do not have a ball cleaning machine. I had my balls cleaned once at a billiards store that used a machine and I didn't think it was done very good.

So when I clean my balls I use some Aramith Ball Cleaner and put a light coat on the balls. Then after I get all the balls coated I take a dry towel and wipe them off. Then I take a different dry towel and hand clean/buff them again. Seems to work fine.

My question is - would a machine clean the balls better than I do by hand? As we all know clean, polished balls will find the pockets a little better than dirty balls.

r/DCP
I built a pool ball cleaner from an orbital polisher and a harbor freight 5 gallon bucket and use microfiber bonnets, it cost about $50, you can get videos on YouTube on how to do it, took me an hour or so to build, I use the Arimith ball polish and a little rubbing alcohol and they come out way cleaner than by hand, I clean 8 balls at a time and run them for 3-5 minutes, you really do need to use a microfiber bonnet and towel, it's what Arimith recommends for cleaning, I couldn't justify the price of a pool ball cleaning machine, I don't know if mine cleans like a real one but it made a set of beat up coin table balls look outstanding, cleaned the balls from my league table and everyone was impressed, all in all, it is a great $50 investment and I'm sure I have wasted more money than that on pool related stuff that didn't work out 😉
 
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You can do it by hand. I would take the time to clean the table first, with damp paper towels, or a clean washcloth. Afterwards, wipe the balls with a couple damp paper towels. You'll hear opinions that say a motorized ball cleaner is the way to go, but I don't think so. Over time, dirt and grit is naturally going to get in that motorized ball cleaner, and wear the balls down some. You don't want that. It takes me a couple minutes to clean the balls with damp paper towels.
Goodness!

Paper towels? Do they not leave pieces of themselves on the cloth? That's worse than finging toilet paper in your girl's panties.

And polishers can be cleaned if necessary too.
 
It's been a few years. I would clean the cue ball by hand. Put a few drops into a small ziplock baggie, drop in the cue ball and uh 'massage' it. Take it out, swap with the next ball and add a couple of more drops.

I built a bucket cleaner, didn't like it as the balls would bang constantly knock into each other. Needed some way of separating like on the Diamond, or Bludworth. Also Aramith Ball cleaner solution would gum up the carpet liner.
 
It's been a few years. I would clean the cue ball by hand. Put a few drops into a small ziplock baggie, drop in the cue ball and uh 'massage' it. Take it out, swap with the next ball and add a couple of more drops.

I built a bucket cleaner, didn't like it as the balls would bang constantly knock into each other. Needed some way of separating like on the Diamond, or Bludworth. Also Aramith Ball cleaner solution would gum up the carpet liner.
I did this with a bucket polisher I made. No more collisions.

Ball Cleaner 1.jpg
 
I made one of the bucket cleaners like above. It works great but I had an opportunity to get one of those amazon ball cleaners at a pretty good discount so I bought one. Works damn good and fast. Here is a video of the complete cycle. Takes a whopping 2.5 minutes.

 
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