Does it matter if the wood has been sitting for over 30 years? Possibly more as my mom is unsure if it was brought with my parents from the Seattle area to here or acquired here. Planks are about 10-12' long with two smaller planks. 14 pieces wide per plank. It is really dense though, used some smaller pieces for furniture repair and its been very difficult to work with.
Bowling alley shaft wood
- Thread starter Kobachi
- Start date
Not really.
A properly cut and dried wood cut last year is better than a 30 yr old air dried wood imo.
Since you say that the wood may have been brought from the Seattle area are you sure that the Maple is Hard Rock Sugar Maple and not possibly Western Big Leaf or some other variety of Maple?
Dick
When I lived in Alaska, I got a load of bowling alley wood from an old fellow who used to install & maintain bowling alleys for Brunswick. This wood was supposedly 60 yrs. old, and no reason to doubt what the old guy said. He had a small barn full of it, bound up in small bundles. I took as much as I could load in a pick-up truck & would have made as many trips to get it all except that it wasn't good enough. I was lucky to get 100 or so shafts from it by the time it was all said & done. And there was nothing special about those ones.
I have come to think of shaft hunting in the same way I think of gold mining. Everybody has good ideas, secret techniques, secret sources, etc. But in the end, good shafts are tough to find on a large scale & there is no magic ticket. Of all the different approaches I have taken to acquiring shafts, the very worst was buying dowels from a well known supplier. Next to that disaster was bowling alley wood. Great for bowling alleys, terrible for cues. It was old, had Brunswick stamped all over it, and I didn't even have to tear up a bowling alley to get it, or avoid nail holes. I gave it all away to friends & family who used it to make cutting boards & kitchen counter tops. Some of it was straight tight grain, clean & pristine. But it was no better than what I get elsewhere. And the age didn't make a hoot. Didn't play any different, didn't weigh any more, had no magical characteristics whatsoever.
I have come to think of shaft hunting in the same way I think of gold mining. Everybody has good ideas, secret techniques, secret sources, etc. But in the end, good shafts are tough to find on a large scale & there is no magic ticket. Of all the different approaches I have taken to acquiring shafts, the very worst was buying dowels from a well known supplier. Next to that disaster was bowling alley wood. Great for bowling alleys, terrible for cues. It was old, had Brunswick stamped all over it, and I didn't even have to tear up a bowling alley to get it, or avoid nail holes. I gave it all away to friends & family who used it to make cutting boards & kitchen counter tops. Some of it was straight tight grain, clean & pristine. But it was no better than what I get elsewhere. And the age didn't make a hoot. Didn't play any different, didn't weigh any more, had no magical characteristics whatsoever.
suckers
Hey, Joey,
lets' not show prejudice against suckers. they have to eat too. Remember patience is a virtue. And suckers are more loved than most people in the world. don't you think?
Bill
Hey, Joey,
lets' not show prejudice against suckers. they have to eat too. Remember patience is a virtue. And suckers are more loved than most people in the world. don't you think?
Bill
other variety
Dick,
Would it really matter if the wood was a different variety. Main objective would be grain/straightness, weight/hardness, and color/ if it meets those objectives would it matter? Or are you saying other varieties can't meet those requirements? Probably so I guess.
thanks Bill
Dick,
Would it really matter if the wood was a different variety. Main objective would be grain/straightness, weight/hardness, and color/ if it meets those objectives would it matter? Or are you saying other varieties can't meet those requirements? Probably so I guess.
thanks Bill
You know, I'm not quite sure. Is there an easy way to tell? Added a pic below, it's 1" across, just one of the scrap pieces.
I have no experience in building cues, but have a little experience in tip and ferrule repair, but beyond that nothing, as of yet. So for someone who wants to start, who has a stock pile of some free, unused bowling alley planks, would it not be worth my time to process the wood? Even if I don't get a single piece of AAA grade, I would certainly get enough pieces that I could attempt to make finished shafts, no?
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It's worth the learning experience for sure.
Cut them and turn them.
Study the dowels/cones and shafts later.
Pay attention to the ones that warped and the ones that stayed straight.
Look at the grains.
When you get woods from other source, compare their weight and stiffness.
Cutting and turning woods even if they turn out to be tomato stakes is a journey you must take.
Brutally simple & honest, if you expect anything less than the best of yourself and your efforts, then you're going to fail. Too many "just getting started" builders use their infancy as an excuse to build cues out of junk wood that looks like the project of a high school student in shop class. Don't get me wrong, there's a role for sub-par cues & somebody has to fill that role. If everybody built great cues then what would great be worth? Darkness has to exist for a star to shine. Do you want to be the vast darkness, or the bright star? It's something you decide when you're "just getting started", and it sticks with you forever. The decision begins with your choice of woods. Cheap out & use whatever you can get a hold of, and be proud of your cheap cues. Or spend the nut to get the best wood you can get, and refuse to settle for anything short of a great cue from yourself, then you can appreciate the feeling of everybody else being proud of your cues.
I ate his cheesecake.
I say let Hits Em Hard turn all that bowling alley maple.
By turning and turning, you get to know your taper setup, your blades, your router, your electricity, your dust collector and your WOODS.
If those bowling alley dowels turn out to be too ugly or crooked for shafts, cut some sections at 15"-18" long. Find the the ones with consistent grain orientation and heavier/denser. They might be good for cores. Cores don't have to be pretty. They have to be straight and hard . 30" long rejects might not be 14-18" long rejects. Often the run-outs can be chopped off , and re-center the best section for cores.
If all those boards yield zero shafts or cores, at the very least you got yourself a good experience turning wood. And if you really pay attention to the woods you turned, they will tell you where they moved and why.
And who says the wood will ever see completion? It's been sitting for 30 years unused, if I don't do something with it, then it will never get used.
That's basically what I'm looking to get out of it. Usable stock if there is any, second chance rejects, and last chance, make tenon replacement dowels!
It has been used, for the purpose it was intended, and is now 30 yrs. obsolete. You would be reusing it for a purpose it was never intended for. If nobody else will ever use it, then why should you? There's a reason we have junk yards for cars nobody wants anymore. :wink:
Kobachi
Scarred but Smarter
Sorry, started this thread and didn't respond much.
What prompted this:
I was fortunate to get inside an old pool hall recently here in Chicago, it had been boarded up for 25+ years. It also used to house a bowling alley.
Many gold crown I's covered in thick dust, taggers got in at one point, tagged everywhere, broke any glass they could find.
When I saw the bowling lanes I thought about the shaft wood possibilities...but after reading the responses from you guys, maybe a cutting board may be more feasible :embarrassed2:
Thanks cue smiths for your input, all good stuff. I'm going to try to post some pics of the inside of the old place for your amusement.
Kevin.
What prompted this:
I was fortunate to get inside an old pool hall recently here in Chicago, it had been boarded up for 25+ years. It also used to house a bowling alley.
Many gold crown I's covered in thick dust, taggers got in at one point, tagged everywhere, broke any glass they could find.
When I saw the bowling lanes I thought about the shaft wood possibilities...but after reading the responses from you guys, maybe a cutting board may be more feasible :embarrassed2:
Thanks cue smiths for your input, all good stuff. I'm going to try to post some pics of the inside of the old place for your amusement.
Kevin.