Does lane topography change?

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bowl1820
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Does lane topography change?

Post by bowl1820 »

In another forum it was said that lane topography doesn't change.

So does lane topography change? (If so how fast?)

Will a lanes topography today be the same next year? How about several years from now?

If house "X"'s lane "A" was tighter than lane "B' several years ago, will they be that way today?
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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by Pulsetech »

Short Answer is Yes it does change

How Fast depends on to numerous factors to list but to understand this you must first understand what a lane is and why is changes. I will list a few factors below

1
All Bowling lanes have a Wood or Timber component to them. The Vast Majority of lane installations are done on a timber foundation.

Timber is not a highly dimension stable material. That means that as the conditions it is in change
so to will the timber. Temperature and humidity are the 2 Major forces that alter timber.

Why doesn't it all change / move the same amount ? . Many different types of timbers from many different regions from millions of different trees. Each piece of timber is unique in how it will expand and contract depending on its surrounding environment.

Bad A/C can and will cause topography issues

2
Most lanes are these days constructed on a truss foundation. These trusses are sat upon in the case of a Brunswick install 2 wedges that can be moved together or apart to adjust the height during the installation. These are glued and nailed together to set the height of the truss. These over time can spit and move if not installed perfectly.

3
Building movement. All buildings move to some degree with the natural shift and movement of the earth(im not going into details here). The concrete floor of the bowling centre beneath the lanes can shift and crack causing unwanted changes to the lanes.

Topography does not change fast unless there are major issues with the centre. It won't change week to week an noticeable amount.

It almost never gets better it pretty much only gets worse.

In the days of well maintained Timber lanes the topography was corrected every few years with resurfacing. These days with synthetic lanes the only way to fix topography is to put paper shims
between the lane panels and the underlayment that it is fixed too. its a time consuming job and
is normally only levelled left to right and not front to back. and only at either the screw holes in each panel or if the lane guy is in a rush it sometimes is only re levelled where the sanctioning body does there checks. (varies)

Front to back topography is very hard to fix on a synthetic lane installation.

Kegel developed a machine to map lane topography with. (called the mapper) this machine runs down the lane and measures level and depressions / Crowning of lanes. Its quite scary to look at just how bad a lane can become.

Kegel when they built their new training centre built the lanes on a system of chains that they can adjust to alter an particular lanes topography. this let them test just how much impact it can have on ball motion.

If you have 5 mins to spare take a look at this " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Greg
BTW I have no affiliation with Kegel.
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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by Pulsetech »

Also just found this on a quick goggle search

http://www.kegel.net/V3/ArticleDetails.aspx?ID=75" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It covers a lot more than I did
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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by bowl1820 »

"REMEMBER, it isn't how much the ball hooks, it's where."
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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by kajmk »

The millimetre (International spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or millimeter (American spelling) (SI unit symbol mm) is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousandth of a metre, which is the SI base unit of length.

It is equal to 1,000 micrometres and 1,000,000 nanometres. There are 25.4 mm in one inch by definition, so a millimetre is exactly equal to 5⁄127 inch.
Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimetre" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A difference of 1 millimeter can translate to a difference of three inches in the ball path.
When a ball goes uphill, it perceives friction, when it goes down hill it's the converse.

I stumbled upon this. The entire content is interesting,
Fast Forward to about 2:56 for the millimeter reference.

[youtube][/youtube]

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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by Pulsetech »

To Add further 1 millimetre is actually .040 or 40 thousands. a lane that has a depression of .039 is actually within tolerance for most sanctioning. .040 is considered out of spec and must be fixed. that said it is only checked and corrected and certain points down the lane. in between these points the lane could be even further out (I have personally seen .500 depression between inspection points).
What does that do to your ball ?? Plenty
Topography is the main reason why 2 lanes in a pair can play so different. Lane guys have been saying this for years.

Greg
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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by kajmk »

Pulsetech wrote:To Add further 1 millimetre is actually .040 or 40 thousands. a lane that has a depression of .039 is actually within tolerance for most sanctioning. .040 is considered out of spec and must be fixed. that said it is only checked and corrected and certain points down the lane. in between these points the lane could be even further out (I have personally seen .500 depression between inspection points).
What does that do to your ball ?? Plenty
Topography is the main reason why 2 lanes in a pair can play so different. Lane guys have been saying this for years.

Greg
I suspect that Lane ''guys'' probably take a lot of abuse because of this. I would bet that most people would not easily believe that differences that are imperceptible to the eye and touch can really make a difference.
I've mentioned before that I first heard this directly from Parker Bohn III during an interview I served as an emergency photographer at. I had also noticed that he was a note taker and how much better he was at solving the lanes when compared to the other lefties on the pairs.
Lane ''guys'' might refer unhappy bowlers to that video as a possible rationale if they are catching flack for problems they did not cause and cannot correct.

Someone facile with physics could probably add credibility to this. The concept makes sense, its the degree of difference that is surprising.

This is also a reason why pattern graphs and systems are only guidelines and not gospel.
When what you see decries what "pattern logic" would seem to call for, remember the immortal words of Groucho Marx, "Who ya gonna believe, me or your eyes?"
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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by kajmk »

Article by Ted Thompson, Nov 8, 2017
Introductory paragraph ...

"How often have you experienced an oil pattern that didn’t play anything like the pattern graph suggested it would? The pattern was ‘x’ length, the high point of the oil on ‘y’ board, yet when you played on it your ball didn’t react anything like you expected, and the optimum pattern exit point wasn’t near where it was “supposed to be”."


http://www.kegel.net/wpa/2017/11/8/the- ... -different" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by ICURNVS »

When a local center converted over to the new Synthetic lanes they run a cutter down the lanes to level the wood lanes. ( I am assuming that the new lanes were installed over the old wood)

To see how out of level the old lanes were was an eye opener. The middle part of the just about every lane was lower than the outer portions down to about 45 - 50', It was like throwing your ball into a banked turn..
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Re: Does lane topography change?

Post by RufusGo »

ICURNVS wrote:When a local center converted over to the new Synthetic lanes they run a cutter down the lanes to level the wood lanes. ( I am assuming that the new lanes were installed over the old wood)

To see how out of level the old lanes were was an eye opener. The middle part of the just about every lane was lower than the outer portions down to about 45 - 50', It was like throwing your ball into a banked turn..
Wow it was that bad? I'm going to ask them are they paying attention to this at my bowling club.
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