Loop the Loop Return
The game was originally played on the bare ground. The Germans used a board about a foot wide on which to roll the ball, and then improved on this by using cohesive mineral substances solidly packed together. At an early date, the Dutch had covered the alley with a roof, and later enclosed it in a rough shed, to protect it and make play possible in any kind of weather. But, great as these improvements were over the crudeness of previous centuries, they are not worthy of comparison with a modern bowling academy.
In the best hard-wood section of the United States, one of the large bowling equipment manufacturers owns about thirty thousand acres of maple. From this raw material is gathered the chief stock that goes into bowling alleys and the pins.
The company has its own logging crews that cut the timber and pile it on flat cars, whence it is transported over a private railroad until it arrives at the company sawmills. Here the raw material enters upon the manufacturing process.
The rough stock-strips for the alley “bed,” “leveling strips,” “return chute,” “post” and “kick-backs” are sawed out of certain of the logs. They are then shipped to a factory where they are seasoned, being kiln dried. The stock is next cut to the required sizes.
The bed stock is cut into strips, planed on all sides, and tongued and grooved on the widest sides. When finished, the strips measure 3 x 1 inch. Part of the bed stock, however, is hard pine, shipped from the Southern states in the rough boards. This is finished similar to the maple strips.
The “kick-backs” are the two partitions, shaped somewhat like a ship’s rudder, which form the two pit sides. Each consists of two facings of the best maple with a core of hard but resilient wood in the middle. They are built in this way to make the pins that fly side-wise spring back on the bed and knock down other standing pins, and also to withstand the exceedingly rough usage to which they are subject by the flying pins and rolling balls.
The cushion forms the rear end of the pit. The frame is stoutly constructed, and the face thickly upholstered with scrap leather and a heavy but pliable covering. It swings on hinges which suspend it from the cross bar, running from each of the kick-backs across the pit end at the top. The cushion diminishes the force of the rolling balls and flying pins, permitting them to fall gently into the pit.