5 TENNIS BALL Uses

The Many Uses Of Tennis Ball(s):

• Use them to remove scuffs on floors. Many janitors use this trick by placing a tennis ball on the end of a broom so it’s always handy.
• Cut an X in the top of each ball and put them on the bottoms of chair legs to cut down on noise and floor scuffs.
• Keep certain types of gnats or flies away from you when you are outdoors. Just cover a tennis ball in Vaseline and hang it from a tree or bush.
• Cut one in half and use to open stubborn jars.



Protect surf boards
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• Use as a cover for protecting your trailer hitch.
• Hang one up to use as batting practice.
• Use as arm weights by cutting slits into a couple of balls and filling them with sand or pennies.
• Fluff up laundry by throwing a couple into your clothes dryer.
• Tennis balls can also help any laundry load dry faster - just throw two or three in the dryer and your clothes will be done quicker.
• Speaking of laundry, put a tennis ball into your washing machine along with your shower curtain and 1/2 cup of vinegar, then wash with hot water. The vinegar will kill the mildew and the tennis ball will help to scrub the mildew off.
• Use on top of sharp garden stakes if you're an accident-prone gardener.
• Stick one on top of your car antenna to locate your vehicle quickly in a parking lot.
• Massage the bottom of your foot.

• Hang from the ceiling of the garage to help you tell where the wall is when you're backing up the car.
• Make a curved sander for refinishing furniture by wrapping a ball in sandpaper 17. Float two or three in your swimming pool to absorb body oils. (Replace every few weeks).
• Stick on the end of a bicycle kickstand to prevent it from sinking into the mud or grass.
• Stick one on the end of a pole to remove cobwebs and dust from ceiling corners.
• Child-proof spiky points around the house.
• Cut in half and fill with beer to make a slug trap in the garden.
• Use on the metal end of a hammer (pop it through by cutting a "X" in the tennis ball) for softer hammering on more delicate materials.
• Protect a padlock. Cut a slit in a tennis ball with a utility knife and slip it over an outdoor padlock to prevent water from getting into it and freezing.
• Remove a broken lightbulb. The bulb broke off in the socket? No problem. Carefully clear away any shards of broken glass, then gently push a tennis ball against the light socket and twist it to remove the bulb’s embedded stem.
• Collect change for tolls. Cut a slit in a tennis ball and stash spare change inside. Keep the ball in your car so you don’t have to grope for your wallet when you’re at the tollbooth.
• Keep a door open. Who needs a doorstop? Wedge a tennis ball between the door and the doorjamb in­stead.
• Get a better grip. Hold a tennis ball in each hand. Squeeze and release repeatedly to strengthen your hands and arms for using tools.
•  Donate them to a local nursing home for use on residents’ walkers. They make the walkers easier to push around for people who aren’t strong enough to lift them.
• When packing something for shipping in a box that’s too large, use tennis balls as shock-absorbing cushions that will hold the item steady in the box.
• If you or your partner (or, if you’re really unlucky, the guy in the next apartment) snore, attach a pocket to the back of the snorer’s pajamas and secure a tennis ball inside. This will ensure that the snorer sleeps on his/her side - most people snore only when sleeping on their backs.
• Hide stuff in them. Make a slit in a tennis ball, then squeeze either side of the slit to open it up.  Use the same concept to pass notes or other items over long distances. Just be sure other people don’t pick it up! This idea has been used at auctions to pass receipts to winning bidders.
• Design and create furnitures!

Recycling used tennis balls and sustainable furniture design from Hugh Hayden
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• Keep the yuckiness out of your pool by floating some tennis balls in the water. Supposedly, the balls will absorb body oils from people who swim in the water - but you need to replace them every few weeks to keep them fresh.
• To keep a door knob from smashing into and damaging an interior wall, cut a large slit in a tennis ball and slide it over the knob. This trick also works great to keep curious toddlers out of off-limits rooms…until they figure out how to squeeze as they turn.
• If you want to leave your car door open but don’t want the interior lights to run down the battery, just wedge a tennis ball into the door frame to keep the light switch depressed.
• When fueling up your car, use a tennis ball to keep the handle of the gas nozzle pushed in to avoid painful hand cramping.
• Put tennis balls under the windshield wipers of vehicles that will be stored for long periods. This will help the blades last longer.

Did You Know...

• A tennis ball's fuzziness provides extra friction, ensuring that when the ball hits the surface, it rolls or skips rather than slides, according to the book "The Physics of Sports" by Angelo Jr. Armenti.  Without the yellow (or white…) fuzziness of tennis balls, the game of tennis would be a whole lot different. The fuzz of the tennis balls creates friction. The fuzziness of the balls creates drag in the air, making topspin and backspin more pronounced and more possible.
• There are two main types of tennis balls: pressurized and pressureless.
  1.) Pressurized tennis balls have a hollow core, filled with air. Some tennis ball manufacturers use nitrogen in the center, because this air tends to last longer – pressurized balls will lose their pressure after about a month or so after opening the pressurized can that they come in. As they lose their pressure, they become “dead” and do not bounce so well.
  2.) Pressureless balls have a solid core. These tennis balls are great for anyone who does not play tennis that often and/or to use and training tennis balls. These tennis balls do not lose their bounce. However, the felt will slowly wear off, and they will eventually need to be replaced.
• When you buy tennis balls, the container that they come in should be clearly marked with what kind of balls it contains – regular duty, extra duty, or high altitude tennis balls.
  1.) Regular duty tennis balls should be used on indoor and clay courts. Extra duty balls would get too fuzzy if used on clay courts.
  2.) Extra duty tennis balls are used on grass courts and tennis courts.
  3.) High altitude tennis balls are used in places like Denver where you are playing 4,000 feet or more above sea level. These balls have different pressure – regular balls would bounce too much at this elevation.
• The numbers on the tennis balls are simply for your benefit – if you are playing with Wilson 1 balls, and the people on the court next to you are playing with Wilson 2 balls, it is easier to retrieve your tennis balls when they wander onto another tennis court. The numbers help you tell your balls apart from other players’ balls (assuming that you are not using the same brand and same number of tennis balls!)
• Tennis balls were originally made of leather or cloth, and stuffed with rags or horse hair. In the 1870s India rubber began to be used, and their function was improved by wrapping flannel around their surfaces. Later innovations included using a felt on the exterior, and the use of pressurized balls.
• Tennis balls must adhere to certain specifications to be used in competition. According to the study "Dynamic Properties of Tennis Balls" conducted by Rod Cross at the University of Sydney in 1999, a tennis ball dropped from 2.54 m -- 100 inches -- onto a concrete slab must bounce between 53 and 58 inches. It must weigh between 56.7 and 58.7 g, and have a deformation of less than 5.97 cm.

How It's Made:

In Other Related News...

Recycled Tennis Balls as Homes For Harvest Mice, UK

Animal conservationists are getting help from Wimbledon to stop it becoming "game, set and match" for Britain's smallest mammal.

Some of the 36,000 tennis balls used at the world-famous tournament are to be recycled as homes for harvest mice.

It is hoped they will help protect the endangered species from their many predators.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club is donating the balls to help the scheme being run by The Wildlife Trust in Avon, Glamorgan and Northumberland.

Source(s): lifehackery.com/,   tlc.howstufworks.com/, livestrong.com/, rdasia.com/,  e-tennis.org/, thisoldhouse.com/
Main-Photo credit: horiavarlan