Interesting fact about bowling pins

[Phonetek]

One thing I love about working at a bowling alley is the things I get to learn. One fact I thought was interesting enough to share is about bowling pins. From what the mechanic tells me most places swap out pins once or twice a year meaning after 6 months of continuous use they are shot. Now what he does is every 4 months he swaps them but he doesn't discard them. He takes them and puts them in a small room kept dark with a humidifier for 4 months while the other set is in use.

By doing this it rests them and allows to wood to expand again in a sense rejuvenating the pins for another go around. As long as the plastic on the pins doesn't get cracked you can repeat this process 2 times per pin and they continue to fly like new. I can verify this from bowling there, they carry very well no dead wood in those racks. So this means he can double the life making them last 12 months by taking the time to do this process. Honestly in all the years I bowled I never really thought much about the pins themselves so it's very cool to learn this.

In the end he donates them to churches who will sometimes set up a portable pair of lanes for events. They give them to leagues & teams to sign as keepsakes. They give them to youth bowlers for something cool to have so they can see one up close and personal. They have even given them to kids with some beat to death no longer used house balls so they can set them up in their yard to play with.

Hopefully you found this as interesting as I have.

[boatman37]

I did not know that. Never thought about it. Didn't even realize they 'wear out'. When there are kids birthday parties at our center they give one to the kid with some writing. I assume the date etc., then people probably sign them. Dunno for sure but just know they give one to the birthday kid.

[Phonetek]

Yeah they eventually wear out, you can notice the difference when they do. You may hear it make an unusual crack sound when the ball hits it or they just seem flat with little action when you hit them. Plus they do get damaged from getting hung up in the machine sometimes and the coating will crack or come off in chunks. We watch for broken ones especially with jams in the back. Keeping a log of all the calls like we do can identify problems with pins too as well as equipment wearing out. Sometimes it's hard to catch damaged ones aside from taking each one out and visually inspecting them. That isn't done daily of course. Sometimes it's obvious by seeing them wiggle or fall over on the pin deck. Other times you can see it when they get loaded on the top.

[bowl1820]

He's trying to maintain the pins moisture content, Brunswick did tests which showed that during the dry winter conditions pins fail 4 times faster than during humid summer conditions. Pins should be stored in a cool area (60°-70°) at 30%-50% relative humidity, So what he's doing would meet that okay.

Some mechanics place pins back into the plastic bags they come in with a damp sponge or place them under a plastic sheet with a wet towel. A discredited practice was soaking pins in water, pins were turned upside down and water poured into the hole in the base. This would cause them to rot out.

After storage the pins should set out for 48 hours to adjust to the houses temp and humidity.

To maintain the moisture content the humidity in the pinsetter area needs to be maintained between 30-50 percent and during the winter the temperature should be around 60° F.

The average life of a pin is said to be about 12-18 months average. The AMFLite Pinnacle pin's had a two-year/10,000 game warranty. (Last I heard)

As a comparison Here's from the 1996 Brunswick Pin Care Manual when they used the MAX pins.

"Under normal conditions, with two sets of pins per pinsetter, a pin should last:
-30 games per day 6 months
-60 games per day 4 months
-90 games per day 2 months"

Something to note is that pin damage is a good indicator of maintenance issues with the equipment.


For more info see the Pin Care manual.

[Phonetek]

I didn't take note of the brand of the pins we use but I'll check tomorrow when I work. I'm guessing AMF since we have AMF pinsetters but I will confirm. I'd have to ask what the house average is for games played per month. The software they use is pretty sophisticated so I would imagine such stats could be retrieved easily. Being a small house they'd obviously get more play than one with 80 lanes but we do have plenty of time where it's pretty empty so I don't know.

Every morning we do turn on an air filtration system in the bowling alley. The bowling alley resides underneath a movie theater so we are essentially in a basement. I'm not sure if the air filtration adds or removes humidity. Being in the lowest level of the building it does not smell musty or like cigarette smoke which of course has been outlawed for many years now. Some alleys still have that smell though nonetheless. Plus we also have plenty of ceiling fans for circulation too.

As for broken pins, if they do get mashed between the table and where they get place on top (forgot the name of it) they can get damaged. I had one the other night that was REALLY stuck above one of the pin cups. I had to unplug the machine and manually crank the table down to get it out. I'm not sure if that was caused from a problem with the machine or if it just bounced around weird and flew in there. It was during league so I was concentrating on just getting it out so they can get going again. I'd have to ask the mechanic on why it got stuck on that one. I did have to check the pin cups with a gauge after I fixed it to make sure none of them got bent which they did not.

As far as pouring water in the bottom of the pins, that seems like a no-brainer they would rot. I'm as far from an expert as anyone could be but under no circumstances would I think that would be a good idea LOL

[mattmc82]

My house uses the one they throw away at the AMF up the road. I honestly wonder what Belmonte would average here 😂

[Phonetek]

My house uses the one they throw away at the AMF up the road. I honestly wonder what Belmonte would average here 😂

LOL Now that's funny. I'll send you 20 of the ones in the dark room, see if your bowling alley will let you BYOP =)

[Eddy]

Yeah they eventually wear out, you can notice the difference when they do. You may hear it make an unusual crack sound when the ball hits it or they just seem flat with little action when you hit them. Plus they do get damaged from getting hung up in the machine sometimes and the coating will crack or come off in chunks. We watch for broken ones especially with jams in the back. Keeping a log of all the calls like we do can identify problems with pins too as well as equipment wearing out. Sometimes it's hard to catch damaged ones aside from taking each one out and visually inspecting them. That isn't done daily of course. Sometimes it's obvious by seeing them wiggle or fall over on the pin deck. Other times you can see it when they get loaded on the top.

Yeah, these are things that most people, even serious bowlers don't even think about. But I do hope that the guys that work there care about what they do, now that I know more about "behind the scenes". Thanks for the insight.

[Phonetek]

I can't speak for other houses but the guy at mine who is training me definitely cares. Ironic thing is he says he's bowled about 60 games his entire life. As a matter of fact, most of the staff aren't bowlers LOL Just me and one of the other guys are the only ones who are at all serious about the sport, he's also a coach. My boss bowls there on a trio league called "Here for da beer" if that tells you anything.

If you are curious about anything else technical or whatever else about the behind the scenes at a bowling alley feel free to ask. Whatever it is I'm sure if I haven't been taught yet I can get the answer. None of this stuff is really rocket science or top secret.

[JasonNJ]

Interesting to hear about the room with the humidifier. My local center is a Brunswick Zone and they get new pins each August and they switch it out the week between the summer league ends and the winter leagues begin.

[chip82901]

What are these wood pins you speak of? LOL. I hate the fact that my home center uses Twisters :(

[bdpeters]

here's a question for you Phonetek. do the pins each lane stay the same or do they circulate between lanes? such as two sets of pins per lane, one on deck and one set in the pin setter or do they rotate between lanes of pairs? I always wondered about this when I would see a colored pin for a contest or giveaway. I am not really familiar with back of house operations.

[Phonetek]

here's a question for you Phonetek. do the pins each lane stay the same or do they circulate between lanes? such as two sets of pins per lane, one on deck and one set in the pin setter or do they rotate between lanes of pairs? I always wondered about this when I would see a colored pin for a contest or giveaway. I am not really familiar with back of house operations.

Each lane has 20 pins and the pinsetter can handle more but it will have issues with too many, I don't remember the limit but there is one. Too many pins then you start getting pin jams because they start stacking up too high and start falling all over the place. When we use the red pin we just add it as the 21'st pin because adding 1 extra pin won't cause problems. If you take one out then add the red pin to keep 20 then it will only show up every other rack more times than not. Being the 21st pin then the chances are higher of it showing up more often. We have the red pins on clips on the back wall behind each lane. When we need them we just grab them and toss them in.

As for rotating them between lanes, no they stay in their pinsetter unless one is in the gutter and someone knocks it across to the next lane. They aren't labelled with lane numbers or anything. So if a pin flies over from another lane we just grab any pin from the one with too many and give it to the one missing one. When we swap out pins to the batch that came out 4 months before they just go to whatever pinsetter we put them in.

Honestly you could circulate the pins between lanes if you were really bored but it wouldn't accomplish anything. It's kinda like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yeah it's something to do besides running around screaming like everyone else is doing as it's sinking but in the end it doesn't matter.

I'll tell you what I will do for you guys. I'm not sure if I'm working the back or the bar tonight. If I'm in the back I will make a video. I know there are some on youtube but I'll make one specifically for you guys. If it's not busy I'll throw a red pin in the rack too to show how it gets in the mix. I'll try to make it more informative than the one I watched. If not tonight then the next time I work back there. Fair enough?

[bdpeters]

nice, thanks for SETTING me straight. that makes total sense.