How does the wooden flooring on bowling lanes stay flat with thousands of bowling ball impacts per day?
In: 2219
Oh wow something I can answer! I worked at a wood bowling ally for about 6 years and saw almost everything
So first off, The first maybe 3rd of the lane is different wood than the rest. It’s harder and throw a finish on there it was fine. The oil also protects it too from skid marks. As staff we were instructed anyone who was clearly throwing the ball farther than the normal person would be asked to stop. There are definitely dents in that part of the lane but its not that noticeable.
Also! PEople come in about every 2 years to re-finish the lanes. AS in put down a new coat. about every 4 they actually sand down the entire lane and floor taking a decent amount off. If you actually look. You can see burn marks on the wood. Most Bowling lanes are SUPER thick and they just sand down to a point where it will eventually be unusable ( maybe after 30 years) .
SO yeeee you are not wrong its just there is a lot of care and thought that goes into those first 30 feet or so.
side note: First time they sanded down the lanes They had around 6 50 gallon garbage back filled with all the sawdust. They ripped when i put it in the trashcan. And I was like. Welp. Thats not my problem and left lmaoooo.
I think the answer that is missing here is that they don’t stay flat. Sure they look flat to you. But they are not level and there are peaks and valleys formed over time. There is a company in Florida (I believe Kegel) that will come out the the bowling center and do a topography scan of each individual lane and provide imaging showing exactly what is going on with each lane. Then if the center chooses they can pay more money and have the lanes leveled to the best of their ability. As you can imagine the right side of the lane gets much worse than the left with all of the extra traffic.
Judicious application of ligma to the lanes and the bowling balls themselves.
You see… Without ligma wood and ligma balls they would totally get bent.
A friend of mine had a butchers block table made out of an old bowling alley from Brooklyn.
Latest Answers