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Author Topic: Brunswick LaneShield  (Read 6787 times)

10 In The Pit

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Brunswick LaneShield
« on: June 13, 2003, 04:38:24 AM »
A couple of weeks back, someone posted about their house preparing to do a synthetic overlay (in a wood house) with some Teflon material.  Well, I hadn't heard of any such animal at the time, but I just came across an advertisement in Bowlers Journal for a new item from Brunswick.  This new product is called LaneShield, and it is a 50-mil thickness Teflon infused surface that goes down over the wood lanes to both protect the wood and extend the lifespan of the wooden lanes.  It is transparent so the wood still shows through the new synthetic overlay.

How does LaneShield work?  Well, I don't have a clue, and I'm not aware of any houses in my area that have gone to this type of overlay as of yet.  Oh yeah....LaneShield is designed to glow under the black lights, so the cosmic bowlers should like it.  At 50-mil thickness, I'm not sure what to make out of this stuff yet.
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SrKegler

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2003, 08:22:46 PM »
That was me 10IP.  The laneshield is going down this month.  What scares me is the 50 mil thickness.  Regular quardian isn't even that soft.

I probably won't even give it a try until late August.  Trying to put off the misery as long as possible.
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RIP Thongprincess/Sawbones

HamPster

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2003, 09:08:57 PM »
I did also.  Of course, the lanes are already at least 30 years old to begin with.  The foul lines are raised, the heads have been patched horribly, and the lanes have pock marks (although slight, and only visible by going out onto them.)  Our laneshield is also going down this month, they're going to close down the alley for about two weeks.  They're replacing everything that they don't need to.  And very stupidly also, the idiot put in new gutters with the bumpers that you see in most new synthetic houses, except they're not computerized.  Somebody has to go down there with this rod with a hook and pull them up.  The pits chew up balls, the lanes suck, the pindecks are terrible, the pins themselves are old and worn out, there's about an 8 inch tall capping on the ball return, so moving deeper than 4th arrow on the right lane is absolutely impossible.  The approaches are decent but some of them have patchwork with nailheads sticking up.  The guy's an idiot, I don't like him, lol, could you tell?
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I know Kung Fu!

I am the one, the one that will bring balance.  All the pins shall be destroyed!
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SrKegler

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2003, 09:13:45 PM »
Hammy, try it out, let me know the changes you had to make.  I'm really dreading this house next year.
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~~~SrK - Have balls, will travel
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RIP Thongprincess/Sawbones

10 In The Pit

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2003, 09:28:35 PM »
Yep, the 50-mil thickness has me kind of worried too.....it sounds awfully thin to protect the lanes.  One thing that the house could do prior to installation of the LaneShield is to cut down the lanes to smooth out any major irregularities, otherwise it is just a matter of time before the cratered underlying wood causes the LaneShield to deform to the contours of the wood itself.  Logic would seem to me that the best route to install it would be to repair any major wood damage, then plane down the wood to a uniform surface, THEN put the LaneShield on top of the wood.

If the house simply puts down Laneshield on a beaten up wood lane, the LaneShield will likely do the same thing that Guardian does, and that is to take on the texture of the underlying surface.

Hamster, your house sounds like the local house here in town that I walked away from several years back.  I just finally got fed up with ball damage, sticky approaches (even though they were wood!), no oil pattern, nobody knew what was going on, nobody cared about what was going on, and I highly suspicion that the house was running as a tax writeoff instead of a business.  The owner has a second house near where he lives, and it does a booming business....I figure that he has kept this local house so he can bring down his income numbers somewhat........he makes some cosmetic changes, but the scores continue to stay in the miserable zone.

SrKegler, good luck on your LaneShield "experiment" coming up in a couple of months.  I don't know how long this stuff has been out on the market, but it will be interesting to see if it holds up or not.
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SrKegler

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2003, 09:51:59 PM »
10IP, unless I'm badly mistaken, regular guardian is around 25-30 mills.  Lane shield, to me, seems to be twice as thick.  If so, its really going to grab the ball.  If its thinner, that would be great.

Our wood lanes are really in pretty good shape.  The house figures they may have 3-4 cuts left on them.  They're going to resurface and then put this crap on to prolong the life of the lanes.
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~~~SrK - Have balls, will travel
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RIP Thongprincess/Sawbones

SrKegler

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2003, 10:50:58 PM »
Where's this house located.  Might be able to talk the wife into letting me come down.  Always interested in new tournaments, especially low scoring ones.
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~~~SrK - Have balls, will travel
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RIP Thongprincess/Sawbones

HamPster

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2003, 11:40:43 PM »
Just out of sheer curiousity from the similarity of our situations, I just wanted to make sure of where you live.  KB743 and I are from Topeka, KS, and the house is called Gage Center Bowl.  The pattern they have down right now is just short of ridiculous.  I went to practice a half million things last week and the ball almost finds the pocket by itself, I was just trying to get it onto the lane nicely, whatever it did after that.  This new surface should help, but if it's a synthetic overlay, what's the point of having it applied onto wood lanes?  I heard that just installing synthetics to begin with wouldn't cost much more than this Laneshield.  The idiot owner is only trying to dress up his craphole because people keep leaving.  And these aren't your average league bowlers that are leaving, it's most of the best in the city.  I still don't know how I managed to bowl so well there, and yet I bowled worse at the house that everybody averages high at.  

I think one of the biggest problems was how quickly the lanes transitioned, in a five man per team league, you could have your ball do something different every single frame, no joke.  I went to get my average sheet for January through April to illustrate a point, but actually it's kind of surprising in one instance.  My strategy was to stay in one spot for the first game, and then make a one arrow move (3rd to 4th) to start the second no matter what the lanes were doing and just crank it and live off mixers.  This is with 4-6 people per pair on a fresh shot.  Backends would carry down after about 6 frames, but the track would hold up.  The move to 4th arrow was to keep from running into a dry track with no backend.  Usually the first game was the best, which is illustrated by a month run (four weeks, first game of each set) that totalled 1074 for the month of March (avg of 268), and combined with the month of April, was 1957 (8 games, 244 average).  What really surprised me was how well I did the second game, I had one game under 207 for 16 weeks, and it was a 199.  Game by game averages for the spring were 1. 224.5, 2. 228.7, 3 207.2.  I've gotten waaaaay off the subject, lol, but when you have 4 youth bowlers to a pair and the lanes transition big time over 3 games, there's a problem.  I'm going now.
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I know Kung Fu!

I am the one, the one that will bring balance.  All the pins shall be destroyed!
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SrKegler

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2003, 11:47:35 PM »
Its not the same house.  This house is in Alton, Il, just across the river from St Louis.  Topeka is just within my circle of how far I can go for a weekend tournament.  Last one I had in Topeka was at West Ridge lanes when they had their eliminator tournament.

And yes please send me the info.  First weekend in August would be great.
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~~~SrK - Have balls, will travel

Edited on 6/13/2003 11:55 PM
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RIP Thongprincess/Sawbones

HamPster

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2003, 12:01:49 AM »
I think I remember talking to you about that one, the one that Jeff Ussery ran?  The Gardner is a pretty big tournament, although typically high scoring.  There was a kid that shot 840 something in qualifying and didn't make it far in match play.  Course, when he bowled a 269 and 258 and got beat both games, it wasn't cause he slacked off.  It should be a great event though, I'm bowling for the first time this year, and I'm really looking forward to it.  I'll be nice to meet somebody else from the BR community.  Don't have the info yet, but I'll let you know soon, if Kristi doesn't beat me to the punch.
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I know Kung Fu!

I am the one, the one that will bring balance.  All the pins shall be destroyed!
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Doggie the Dog

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2003, 12:02:03 AM »
Hamster- is it the Gage bowl on Hunton street or the one on 24 highway in east Topeka?  I've seen the Gage houses- you allude to the capping, they had above-ground ball returns and they changed to semi-undergrounds-the capping extends through the approach-in the 70s.  I've never bowled there or anywhere in Topeka.

SrKegler- is this house in Alton, IL called Bowling Haven or something like that??
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Tex

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #11 on: June 14, 2003, 12:03:06 AM »
In the earlier discussion on this product I mentioned that my center is having this installed the week of July 7th. I have held the product in my hand and can at least assure you it is nothing like Guardian. I showed it to someone that had first hand experience from lanes with the Guardian and he confirmed this. The product is hard. If I where to give you any visual it looks like a sheet of .050 Lexan. Not saying it is Lexan, but closest thing I can think of that looks like this or maybe Plexiglas. I don't "think" the problems that the Guardian had with softness is ever going to come up with the new product. It was tested using the Brunswick Throbot and is supposed to have been denied ABC approval until this year due to excessive scoring. Now when would be the last time that excuse was ever used by ABC, but that is another subject. I am optimistic about the new product and will know more in a few weeks. I do know the lanes will be fully resurfaced prior to installation and allegedly that is a requirement to provide the static electricity bond down the lane. There is a two sided tape used at the foulline and on the tailplank to hold the ends down. I would not get completely discouraged before you roll on the stuff. Now if the house uses some old conditioner instead of the good stuff (KEGEL) , well who knows. As far as test lanes, I think that is only a rumor. We are not a test, but a true bought it for real installation.
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HamPster

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2003, 12:04:53 AM »
The one on Huntoon.  The semi-underground returns are only at the Huntoon one now, and it's reeeeeaaaaally irritating.
--------------------
I know Kung Fu!

I am the one, the one that will bring balance.  All the pins shall be destroyed!
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HamPster

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #13 on: June 14, 2003, 12:06:22 AM »
I knew she'd beat me to it . . .
--------------------
I know Kung Fu!

I am the one, the one that will bring balance.  All the pins shall be destroyed!
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10 In The Pit

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Re: Brunswick LaneShield
« Reply #14 on: June 14, 2003, 12:16:43 AM »
SrK, you are probably right about the Guardian thickness.  I've never heard exactly how thick that Guardian actually is, but I do know that it is thin enough that it will eventually take on all of the contours of the lane that it is covering.

This "Teflon infused" LaneShield has me wondering just what the Teflon will accomplish on the finish.  Obviously we know what the Teflon is intended to do, but it leaves one wondering exactly how well it will affect the ball reaction.
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