HighWizardOrren

Barely, if at all. The lanes are frickin' indestructible. I have it on good faith that a former mechanic took a sledgehammer to one and couldn't make a mark.

In practice, you definitely can scratch or dent up the lanes, but they're literally designed for people to throw bowling balls on them for decades at a time. They're extremely durable.

Still don't do it, though.

Bowling pins are insanely tough, they'll last many years so long as they aren't being repeatedly damaged by the machine. We don't repair them—once they're done, they're done. We occasionally sell old pins if people ask for them, usually as shooting targets. New pins are ordered through the same internal order system we use for mechanical parts or any other typical supplies.

Non-bowling damage limits it a fair bit... I've seen a number of machines jammed up because a plastic toy from the arcade made its way down the lane and into a critical area. I've seen a number of large metal parts snap in half due to the general stresses of time. (See images 6 and 8 in my proof album.) I've had the same black light shattered three separate times by a college-aged kid throwing a 6-pound ball up into the ceiling.

Really though, these machines are built like tanks. I can't tell you how many times I've found a part snapped in half or horribly worn down, and the lane was barely malfunctioning. It's always either a case of "How the hell was this still running? How did I not notice this until now?", or a single tiny part breaking and making the entire machine completely nonfunctional.

EDIT: additional info people will probably find interesting. We generally replace all our pins at once, when they're all more or less worn down enough to warrant it. Replacing all the pins for 40 lanes costs right around $10,000. Each lane ideally has 21 pins. (Two full racks + 1 extra to help speed up resets.)

No, but I have had people throw balls at the lane right as I was going down to work on it. While the lane was turned off, and there were already 2 other balls stuck in the lane. Not the brightest of bulbs.

If I have to get down onto the lane and there are bowlers present, I can manually drop the rake (the bar that sweeps away the pins) in front of me. Then if someone throws a ball, it will hit that and scare the living hell out of me, but not actually hurt me.

The VAST majority of work I do doesn't require me to get down onto the lane itself, though.

Unfortunately, I spend the vast majority of my time fixing lanes. No time to really bowl.

Definitely walking down the lane. For the LOVE OF GOD, DON'T WALK DOWN THE LANE. Best case scenario, you slip and eat shit. Worst case scenario, you make it all the way to the machine, go underneath it for some reason, and get CRUSHED TO DEATH BY HEAVY MACHINERY.

Definitely a clear ball with a skull inside. I love that thing, see it from time to time when getting ball returns.

There are so many good team names. I like the Tucking Fen Pins and "Jobu Needs a Refill!".

Well, I've only been with the company since 2014, so I don't know how much I can speak to prior decades.

When I was first hired, we still had smoke machines. We don't have those anymore. We do cosmic at all times now, except when a league is running, and then we do cosmic in the portion of the house that isn't running league games. The scoring systems have gone through a number of upgrades, and have gotten a lot better over time.

The machines themselves haven't changed a bit. A2s were designed in the 60s and built in the 70s and 80s, and have been maintained ever since. They'll get the occasional new part but fundamentally they're the same machine that's been going up and down for 40 years.