offspots

[Dutch]

Anyone have DBA Smart decks?
We've had them for almost 3 years. They were great for the 1st season then offspots started to get more frequent. Now there out of control.
We've tried sanding, coating with urethane & sanding (which has worked best so far), painting a urethane circle around the pin spots and spraying the decks daily with several different types of solutions.
Our next attempt will be to bleach the decks.
Getting rid of the "Smart decks" is currently not an option.
Any suggestions?

[Guest]

Re: offspots

Hey Dutch
What type of pins are you using, Brunswick or AMF, I have had problems before with Brunswicks. Try cleaning the pindecks with either Acetone, or Chlorinite 8 solvents. The best thing thatI can suggest is to, sand the decks and leave them rough, and apply a coat of U300 lane finish. U300 is a soft finish and almost completely eliminates offspots. Please get back to me.

[MARDIBOB]

Re: offspots

We have had this problem and tried everything from coating decks to stripping every day works till about the second game.Got so bad you had to walk around with a pin stick.Averaged about 60 per nite dont dare to try to do anything else.Just so happened it was time for our new wood put in dacos pins PROBLEM GONE.What type of pins are you using we were using amf pins.

[Kat]

Re: offspots

FWIW, we use AMF pins here (ugh!), and had about 20 out-of-ranges per 2 shifts (day & night). When we had HPL Overlays put in, outa ranges went through the roof. Now we average about 50 per week. This is with stripping every morning and ZERO oil on pindeck. That big ring on the bottom of the AMF pins seems to cause alot of outa ranges. While the Brunswick MAX is not the greatest pin in the world, it still has the lowest outa range ratio I'm aware of. I ran 1/2 the house for about 1 month with MAX and VERY FEW outa ranges on that end of the house.

[Dutch]

Re: offspots

We had AMF pins in till last week. We put in brand new Vulcan "Vultex" pins. Offspots have gone down a little this week, but that could be any number of reasons. (including coincidence)
Got to thinking about what you said, Kat, about the ring. Looked at them today. The wood has shrunken down. The nylon rings were the only part of the bottoms that were touching the deck. Might have something to do with our 10% humidity here in Reno. Hey Ken, When was the last time you saw 10% humidity there in OR? I've seen it raining here with only a 65% humidity.

[Kat]

Re: offspots

Dutch...

That seems to be the problem I have noticed over the years. The AMF ring is just so damn wide that when it rides the pin deck, it just glides across. Mix that slick and smooth surface of the ring with some nice clean synthetic pindecks, and voila! Outa range. Another check for sliding pins is check your "respot calls". Alot of outa ranges are not called as such, but become respots due to the fact that our tables are not flat underneath (unless you have the 8800 pinsetter) and cause our pins to knock over occasionally.
Best of luck curing your outa ranges!

Kat

[vinson]

Re: offspots

What we used to do is wet the bottom of the pins once in a while to make the wood swell out so that it was all that was touching the lane. Scores sure went up and we didn't lose any pin life. This was on amflites

[tmac-R]

Re: offspots

I have the same problem . I have H.P.L lanes and a Silver Bullet wash/oil machine. We also wash off decks by hand daily. This takes us approx. 30 - 45 mins per day. I am currently using AMF Amflite II pins that are 5 -6 years old. This surely has to be the reason for the calls. I currently average 70-80 off spot pins per week .

[Tod hiles]

Re: offspots

I have DBA decks and the best thing I found to use was bleach and water 50/50 and sprayed the decks on mon. and fri. just a light mist on the spots. The sprayer I used was a one gallon pump up type like the ones the exterminater uses.
Getting HPL lanes installed this month so this is what I will try first!
Hope this helps Tod Hiles

[Guest]

Re: offspots

You might have tried this already but have you checked and adjusted your lane cleaner/stripper? Are you cleaning the lanes every day? I can't imagine having that many out-of-ranges without oil on the pindeck. We received new amflite2 pins in all the machines to replace the old ones 3 months ago for the state tournament and the average number of out-of-ranges did not go up or down. We average about 10 out-of-ranges a week, and that's only because we have a lot of kid's birthday parties. FYI: wood lanes, urethane coating, silver bullet magnum lane machine, visflo 39.0 oil, and formula 388 lane cleaner.

[Guest]

Re: offspots

We have recently discovered that AMF HPL pindecks suck! With wood decks we averaged 2 off-spots a week. When we first got the new lanes and decks we shot up to a record 22 off-spots in one day! Any ways to solve the problem we tried the chemicals offered by DBA. They worked awful. Next we tried something simple. Applying a floor cleaning wax from PAMSCO cleaners. We just apply it on once a month with a rag and let it dry. It doesn't affect the pins or discolor them in any way. There is one down side in that eventually it will build up and and turn black in spots where pins don't make a whole lot of contact. So about twice a year we will use a wax stripper and scrub the decks.
Just my two cents.

[Guest]

Re: offspots

A lot of the current off-spots are being caused by the larger base ring on the modern pins. Some pin companies like Vulcan are shipping pins with a very small post protrusion of wood, this helps reduce the off-spots. Once the wood is level with the ring, the ring is abraded enough to provide traction.
As for deck coatings, Lane Masters have a new pin deck treatment which increases traction and does not need to be applied every day.

[neil anderson]

Re: offspots

I take care of 46 machines with 3 different types of synthetic decks and what I have found also to work very well was the bleach/water combo. Spraying it out of a 2 1/2 gal. sprayer once a day and it takes hardly any time and it works. Be Careful, If you mix too much bleach, it will leave white marks on the bowling balls

[This message has been edited by neil anderson (edited 08-28-2000).]

[Dutch]

Re: offspots

Since the topic has been brought up again, I thought I'd post an update.
Using a 1:1 ratio of bleach & water twice a week has almost totally eliminated our offspots, even with the old pins that the nylon rings are the only part of the pin bottom that's in contact with the pindeck.
Thanks everyone,
Dutch

[BG]

Re: offspots

We strip and oil our lanes at both my centers every day using Phoenix Sanction machines (what a beautiful machine too). The back-ends and pin decks are BONE DRY. Yet, we are still AVERAGING 20 offspot calls per day per center. We run AMF pins in both places. My 36 lane center just put brand new AMF pins this past August, but my 32 lane center have been running the same AMF pins since August 1999. I guess it is the AMF pins. I am pulling my hair out. We have wood pin decks. I may go get a hatchet and dig little gulleys around the pinspots so the pins have no choice but to fall if they move anywhere off the pin spot..lol.

[This message has been edited by geminix (edited 09-26-2000).]