It’s been tough to find time to work on the lane of late but I haven’t been completely useless. I did find the time to get the bowling lane completely leveled. Man that lane is heavy! I had to be smart and use a prybar and a small piece of 2×4 to lift the lane up enough to shim it where I needed to. It wasn’t off very much but it has to be as close to perfect as I can get it in order to give the most fair and realistic bowling experience. I checked the lane every foot along the way and it is now perfectly level.

I have also finished and attached the cushion in the back of the pit. I am very happy with it.

My wife bought me 5 yards of black vinyl for my birthday (Thanks Honey!), WAY more than I needed, but that’s fine, especially since I have zero experience in working with vinyl.

Basically I measured how much of the area needed to be covered with vinyl. Allowed a couple of inches of extra material on each side and cut it. I attached the bottom first (from the inside) then inserted my “padding” (a couple of 16″ pillows that together span the 32″ pit), pulled the vinyl tightly over it, pulled it over the top/back of the pit, folded it under itself and then put some heavy staples in it. Not sure if it was the best way or not but it works for me and I think it looks great.

Since I now have the lane leveled the next step will be to attach the 1/2″ MDF underlayment for the lane surface. I’ll let you know when I get that finished and probably take some more pics.

I also need to add some polyurethane on the gutters. I used 3 coats of oil-based paint and they look great but I want to give them a little extra protection.

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll keep you posted.

My wife and I had a birthday party for my oldest daughter this past Saturday night. We had 18 people here, most of whom had not seen the new bowling area of our basement. Some had no idea that I had been working on it. I mounted the new masking units on the wall just before people started arriving. Everyone was drawn to bowling area and asking lots of questions, and all of them wanted to try it out.

So…. I took some other laminate that I had (the same that I used for the approach area) and quickly made a lane surface. I was a little nervous because no balls had really been rolled down the length of the lane (other than rolling a ball down the gutter and sending it back down the ball return). Also, the pit area isn’t finished yet, still have a little painting and polyurethaning (is that a word?) to do, and I have not attached the cushion at the back of the pindeck yet. But people were eagerly lining up and I heard the kids calling out “I’m first, I’m second”, etc. so I made a makeshift cushion with some padding and the vinyl that will be used for the official cushion and let them have at it.

I can’t really explain the feeling of watching people get so much enjoyment from using something that I created over the past couple of months. I poured my heart and soul into it and it was a big moment. What if they didn’t like it? What if it just didn’t feel right? What if it wasn’t realistic? Would the laminate truly work as a lane surface? What if it broke when people actually used it? LOL!

I think my smile was just as big as everyone who took turns rolling the ball down the lane and knocking down pins. My youngest daughter went |9|-|, |X|X|, |X|X| in her first 3 frames! Much better than I did! The pin action was very realistic. The laminate seemed to be a perfect surface. The ball actually had some revs and hooked or backed up, depending on who rolled it.

My Dad and I had just as much fun setting pins and sending the balls back down the return as everyone else did bowling. I couldn’t have been more proud. I can honestly say that everyone who tried it really enjoyed it.

After about 45 minutes I cut everyone off and we headed upstairs to watch my daughter open her presents, eat some cake, and play some board games. All in all it was a great night, and a huge test was passed. My only regret is that I was so into what was going on that I didn’t take 1 single pic of all of us bowling.

The actual maple lane surface that I will install onto the lane came this morning, can’t wait to get it installed. The “full-sized” bowling league starts tomorrow night at the local lanes. Life is good!

I came across some masking units for sale online. I inquired about them and Dad and I took his truck and picked them up this past Saturday.

I really like them. They look to be from the late 70’s early 80’s. One side has an animation of a bowler going through his approach. The other side has graphics of balls and pins. They have a vector/skeletal style and a very colorful look to them. I think they’ll look great up on the wall next to the lane. They are nearly 23 feet long together.

Decided that I didn’t like the blue gutters with the (mostly) black sides. So… changed the color of the gutters to red. Much better. Bought some candlepin bowling balls on eBay and received them today, I think they are going to work great. An exact half-scale ball is 4.3 inches and these are 4.5 inches. The candlepin balls are a little heavier (2 lbs. 4 oz) than the Linds half-scale ball (1 lb 8 oz). I think they are going to drive through the pins better and deflect less. Made a quick little video of the ball return. I can put it up on here if anyone is interested.

Before I even started building the lane I had design after design in my head and on paper. I have settled on the lane foundation but I am still changing my mind on details. Just when I think I have something finalized I tear it apart and decide on another, better (I hope) way to do it. I am wearing out a path to the home improvement store!

I knew I wanted something strong, that would always be solid and level. So I am using 2×10s cross-braces for the bedding, with another 2×4 bed longways on top of those. This is the way many regulation lanes are built, also it elevates the lane to a comfortable level for adults and kids, about 13 3/4 inches off the floor.

I have just a 4 foot approach, enough room for an adult to take a good-sized step and roll the ball. I only have a 28 foot long area where I am building my lane so I wanted to maximize the space for the lane.

Here is a construction shot of the approach. It is not a final construction pic, just wanted to give an idea of what I’m talking about. (Notice that when building a lane you can never have too many levels.)

Below is another shot, standing where the approach will be, looking down the uncompleted lane. Nothing is attached yet.

Below the bottom lane bedding is complete. On top of it I laid a couple of 2×4s, a sheet of MDF and a piece of wood painted the colors my gutters will be.

After the flood came I had to take some time to rip up all of the carpet and repair the damage, then it was back to work on the dream. Below I finished painting the gutters, the color is “sail blue”. The sides will be black (half of the left side is finished and the right side has primer applied) and I am hoping to paint some retro-ish things on the side. I laid the MDF on top of the bedding, soon I will attach it and then put the laminate on top, which will be the lane surface.

Bye Bye Blue! Just didn’t like the way the black sides and the blue gutters didn’t seem to go together so I changed it to “Sunrise Red”. Also, kind of hard to see but i have finished alot of the pit work. I decided to lay the top 2×4 bedding flat because it was too far of a drop to the gutter when they stood on end, makes it more realistic and it won’t sacrifice any strength.

Below is the approach end of the ball return I built. I took a video of it in action tonight, I’ll see if I can post it up here some time soon. The ball return works perfectly. The ball on the left is the exact half-scale ball (4.3 inches) from Linds. The 5 on the right are the candlepin balls (4.5 inches) that I just received today from Ebay.

I lost a couple of weeks from the flood and have been very busy but I have found some time to work on the lane. I am in the home stretch now. The lane is completely framed and I have started painting the sides and gutters. Also the ball return is coming along nicely. I’ll try and get some pics added in the next couple of days.

Worked all day on the lane yesterday and got a lot done. Finished framing almost all of the sides, got half of the top bedding finished, called it a day, and then the floods came. Yep, 2 inches of water flooded my basement. Never had a drop down there before and now this happens. My wife helped me shim the entire lane off the floor and out of the water. We spent all day Sunday cleaning up and surveying the damage. Hopefully we got the lane bedding out of the water quick enough to avoid it being ruined. My wife says this is just a trial and to keep working towards my dream, so I will.

A gentleman I had corresponded with who was also building a half-scale lane told me about some exact half-scale pins he found online. I shared the good news with my soon-to-be bride (who could not be more supportive of me and my dream, thank you Baby!) and she went out and contacted the company and surprised me with a new set of exact half-scale pins and an exact half-scale bowling ball for my wedding gift.

The pins are amazing, they are manufactured just as regulation-sized pins are, made of wood and plastic coated. They even have a glow effect under black light. They are amazing and very realistic, just exactly what I needed. So I knew that I could move ahead with the exact half-scale lane project now that I had the perfect pins and ball to compliment it.

Here are some shots of the new pins and ball.

New pins under the pindeck light

Artsy, outdoor shot of a pin

Left to Right: new pin, new ball, original, antique pin

Below: Pins under blacklight

Since I didn’t have the room required for a regulation-sized lane (it’s nearly 78 feet from the start of the approach to the end of the lane on a regulation lane) I started working with scaling the lane down to a size that I could put in my basement. Then I realized that the pins and balls have to be scaled to match whatever scale you are using or it will not work. I decided to use half-scale dimensions for the lane and looked for exact half-scale pins and ball.

I ran across an antique set of pins on Ebay in perfect shape, they were solid maple pins with 2 hand-turned solid wood balls. They were slightly less than half-scale so I started to make all of my dimensions off of that. The calculations weren’t nearly as easy as just dividing everything in half.

Here is the original/concept pindeck and pins. To match the scale of the ball and pins the lane is only about 18 3/4 inches wide. The pindeck is 3/4″ MDF with about 5 coats of polyurethane on it.

Below is the original game we played. We used the 4 foot pindeck, attached to an 8 foot piece of 3/4″ OSB flooring with a couple coats of polyurethane on it. I even made a makeshift ball return. My daughters and I had a lot of fun playing.