reclaimedbowlingwood

Not OP, but I reclaim bowling alley lanes for a living. It's been my thing for the past 13 years.

In 99% of the alleys I encounter, the first 32ft are maple, the next 43ft are pine, and the final 4ft are maple. It makes sense to have the harder wood where you to stand to throw the ball, where the ball lands, and where the ball hits the pins. I always thought it was because pine wood was cheaper, but I did some research and Brunswick claims it was also for the more open grain of the pine wood. Maybe it's true, or maybe it was Brunswick trying to explain their cost cutting as a benefit, haha. Here is a scan of an old newspaper article going into more detail: https://imgur.com/TRg7fQU

We definitely see dents in the pine sections of the wood, and I always think about the dudes that lofted the balls 30ft down the lane to make that happen. There are still plenty of dents in the maple section of the wood too, but they're very shallow. When I'm sanding or planing the wood, I try to leave traces of the dents: https://imgur.com/fBe5PZC

You're also correct about the section where there are two different kinds of wood. The first transition is typically 20in, and the transition back to maple at the pin deck is usually 16in. Here is a picture of that transition, which is called a splice on technical documents: https://imgur.com/a/3J8jV07

Happy to answer any other questions. :)

I got really excited when I saw this thread, thanks for starting it.

The wood lanes start out at 2-3/4" thick, and they start to reach their end of life when they are sanded below 2-1/4". At that point, the nails start poking through as they resurface the lanes. Fun fact, each lane has about 8,000 nails—all hammered in by hand, no nail gun. The forearms on those guys.. 😳

A lot of the projects I take on have thin synthetic panels installed on top of the wood lanes. One in Lexington had 44 lanes: 32 wood lanes with synthetic panels on top, and then 12 thicker all synthetic lanes added at a later date. I don't have to exact specs of the synthetics, but usually the panels are about 12ft long. I feel like the on-top panels are maybe 1/2" thick and the pure synthetic are maybe 1-1/2” to 2".