1. Before building or tweaking a pattern make sure the machine is cleaning properly
2. Make sure one person mixes all the cleaner
3. Try to make enough cleaner to last 3 or 4 days at a time
4. Do not use hot or warm cleaner / water mix to put in the machine. It will clean the lanes more and make the pattern hook more
5. Make sure you you have sufficient track oil for the ball to skid down to the "spot" before the ball changes direction
6. The "31 rule" will always apply unless the pattern shape does not allow the ball to see the patten distance. The "31 rule" says to subtract 31 from the pattern distance to determine where the break point of the ball when it leaves the pattern - example 40 - 31 = 9th board is the break point at 40'
7. If you want a big backend hooking pattern build a 36' - 39' pattern with the oil concentrated between the 5-9 boards
8. If you want a medium pattern for everyone with mistake room each way build a 39' - 42' pattern with oil concentrated between the 7-12 boards
9. If you want a tight pattern with hold build a 41' - 45' pattern with the oil concentrated between 10-14 boards

Great information!


billman

Yes, good stuff...keep on keepin' on...these parameters you lay out, do they apply to both wood & syns, or one more than the other.

Yes.....wood or synthetic.

How do you compensate the "31 rule" based upon crowning or depressed lanes?

From my travels the oil pattern makes the ball slide the distance oil is applied. The 31 rule will still come be used.

On a lane that is crowned, the line of attack will be much straighter to get to the "spot".

On a lane that is depressed you will probably have to start further left than normal to arrive at the "spot".

Now.....if you have a short pattern on a depressed lane the depression will most likely not have an effect on ball reaction since you are right of the depression.

There are may things that will have an effect on ball reaction.

The issue with tilts (which will impact play more than depressions/crowns IMO) and depressions are these numeric values are not known to the bowler.

Most good tournaments will post a pattern you can decipher.

Jerry keeps good notes on lane conditioner patterns. I've seen his office.

Nice Teddy!

king,could you give examples under lane patterns 101 for numbers 7,8 ,9 using a kustodian with smoothing bars,40ml stream using defence c 7 to 1. can e-mail me at jpitts@stny.rr.com.

http://www.kegel.net/patternlibrary/default.asp

You can find them right here under the Challenge series and Sport series. All the different patterns under the recreational series are for a 50 mic stream.

Thanks King. Considering my knowledge on pattern building, I can use all the help I can get! My Tuesday Scratch league wanted a challenging pattern. Used one from Kegel in my Phoenix-S but failed to realize it was for transfer brush only on 50 mic stream. Needless to say, I've succeeded to drop averages 10-35 pins!

Oh, they wanted challenging. I think the breakdown happens so fast that you can see it change as the ball travels down the lane! The only saving grace as the proprietor is that nearly EVERYONE is down in ave in that league so no one feels excluded. I'd expect more complaining, but amazingly it's not happening. Refreshing, really.

Good to see Kegel has included TR pattern conversions for their Challange/Sport series. Probably be using one or all of them next season.

Thanks again.

Welcome. If you want one of those tweaked let me know.

I've always watched the 28-45' area to determine what to do to make the lane condition "hit" better.
What is your take on this method?
Of course, I watch how the ball drives through the pocket but this area seems to be the key in my mind.
The slide is obvious but the transition is not as easy to read since there are so many balls and bowlers.

alot of great info here jerry. keep up the great work.