Any bowling alley works through a combination of a wooden or synthetic lane flanked by semi-cylindrical gutter channels, an automated pinsetter machine and ball sorter, and a return ball gully and stacker.
The glossy, 60-foot lane is normally constructed out of 39 strips of sugar maple wood, which itself is coated with varying layers of oil down its length.
This coating is often heavy towards the bowler end, before dissipating down the bowling alley. This allows a spinning ball more purchase in the final quarter of its journey, enabling pro-bowlers to hit the pins at varying angles. At the pin end of the alley, starting at the termination of the lane, lays the pin-deck. This deck is where the pins are set up and knocked down, and thanks to this constant activity, it is coated with a durable impact-resistant material.
Behind the deck lies the first part of the mechanical pinsetter machine. The pit and shaker collects both the fallen ball and pins before shuffling them to its rear and into mechanical lifts that raise them to above the alley. Once there, the ball is then funneled onto a metal track which then descends back under the lane to the conveyer belt gully and back to the bowler.
In addition, returned balls are automatically slowed and filtered by spinning rubberized pads as they reach the docking station and ball stacker at the bowler end of the lane, as well as scores being automatically logged and recorded by the lane’s in-built computer system, and displayed on a screen.