Bowling Ball Urn Project

$2,240.00

Custom bowling ball urn project involving adapting the customer-provided bowling ball into a cremation urn including the following processes:

  • vacuum/pressure casting dyed resin into existing finger holes
  • creating an opening and partially hollowing interior of bowling ball
  • hand chasing threads into the new opening
  • casting a solid, dyed piece of resin or using Corian to act as a closure
  • turning closure to match opening and chasing threads
  • creating a silicon gasket to seal the closure
  • includes a “lane” stand with a “gutter” rim and laser engraving

See description area below for further details and note the “RISKS” section.

Available on backorder

Pay a 20% deposit per item

Description

Original product was a private project. Click image to see verified review source.

Our Bowling Ball Urn custom project resulted from consulting with a patron on her deceased mother’s interests in life.  Among many, one of them was obviously ninepins.  Fortunately, the customer still had her mother’s bowling balls.   In this case, a Brunswick 5038 Danger Zone. The images you see here are proof that a bowling ball can indeed be turned into a cremation urn.

The work we have done on our Big Lebowski Movie Prop Urns with bowling ball display stands has had us inside half a dozen bowling balls.  Some of them are more like concrete on the inside.  The hard ones, they rip through blades and tools, even carbide.  Others have more supple viscera but even they are very hard on tooling.  All of the dust from the machining is assumed toxic.  On its own, mounting a bowling ball to a lathe is a wacky process involving a certain amount of terror that must be ignored in order to get down to the work.

Turning, cutting, and machining wood at the proper speeds and sharpness has a certain hum and “schling” to it that whatever proprietary blends of urethane are used for bowling balls do not allow.  Instead, there is rubbery chaos that shoots into every thing and where.  Our Instagram has videos to demonstrate this.

Finger holes have to be filled with resin using our vacuum/pressure casting facility.  We dye the resin not to match the ball.  Rather, it doesn’t distract and still allows the original boreholes to read as “finger holes”.  This keeps human remains from leaking out if the main chamber meets the finger holes.

From the same dyed resin, we also cast closure that gets threaded to match the receptacle in the bowling ball.

Lastly, we laminate rock maple into a bowling lane configuration and turn a base for the bowling ball so that your loved one can be permanently at rest on a lane.  Engraving is included around the perimeter of this base.

RISKS

There is no way to know what is on the inside of your bowling ball until it is cut into.  Chances are good that we can compel the ball you provide to us into becoming a receptacle for human remains, but there is a risk of catastrophic failure.  For this reason, we only require a fraction of the project cost as a non-refundable deposit.  This covers the mounting of the ball to the lathe and hollowing it out.  You will be informed of success or failure promptly.  Memento is unable to assume fault or liability for what could end up being a broken bowling ball.  By making the deposit on this product, you agree to these risks and terms.

Bowling balls are heavy.  Shipping the ball to Memento will be costly as well.  Shipping of the completed project is included in the continental United States.

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