Maple Bowling Lane - Reclaimed and Used for Furniture

[Anthony Vitucci]

I am a recent (2 years) wood worker, I have the usual tools.  I plan on buying few 15' X 42" pieces of maple bowling alley lane to make furniture for a small house my wife just inherited.  We will use the house as a vacation/weekend house and do not want to nor have a lot of money to spend on furniture. 

This seems like perfect timing to put my extensive research and hands-on wood working skills to the test.  I know that these lanes have numerous nails running vertically and that cutting them to size will not be easy....but my real concern is how to best strip and refinish them.  I will not be disassembling then boards and planning the jointing them...but rather cutting the lanes to the size I need them for (dining table, benches, coffee table etc...)
 
Should I buy a RO 150 or a HL 850 or ???  Hand planes ??  

Has anyone ever done this?  all advice welcome  THANKS the new guy

 

[1951CorrectCraft]

I have a kitchen island top made from a bowling lane. There are many, many nails, buy extra blades. Mine was assembled with 16 p nails that were relatively soft. I used an RO 150 and stepped my way up the grits from 40 to 180 Rubin. I did not have a difficulty with the paper loading up from the bowling alley finish. Makes a great conversation piece.

 

[Stephen B]

[size=14pt]

I recycle a lot of timber, in fact the main reason the shop is Untidy, is the amount I have stored.

The first tools I would purchase are a battery magnetic nailer finder and a pair of medium to long handled nail pullers.

Then a good quality but inexpensive circular saw for preliminary sizing, cutting out rot, rough ends etc.,.

After letting the timber dry out, I then go through the following steps -
1. recheck for nails and other metal,
2. with RO150 in ROTEX mode and 40/60gGarnet, sand surfaces, removing impregnated dust, varnish and paint,
3. recheck for metal,
4. use a saw bench, planer and thicknesser to process the timber to smooth and straight surfaces. I do not over process, as a certain project is not necessarily in mind. If timber is really warped, I hand plane some of it with a Makita 82mm plane before machining.
5. store timber for climatisation, often when a project is coming up it will need to be reprocessed due to movement.

From then on your choice of Festools will depend on the projects you have in mind. You could probably do this without a saw bench, using TS and rail.

Edit. Step 2 should be done with sander and vac, as timber surface may also be impregnated with chemicals to kill termites or other wood attacking insects.

 

[Anthony Vitucci]

thanks very much for your feedback.....

 

[wow]

I disassembled a section of bowling alley years ago to make into a bench top. The stuff I pulled apart was nailed together with spiral nails every few inches. It was a PITA to get apart, but for a benchtop it was critical to get it apart.

There is no glue holding the pieces together, as they are intended to flex when a bowling ball hits them. That's all fine and good for a bowling alley, but it's not acceptable for a benchtop as it tends to separate and opens up.

If you are going to use it 'as is', I would drill through it from side to side and put a piece of 'all-thread' in there to hold it together. I did this on mine, even after i glued it up as a solid top.

 

[Stephen B]

I have a kitchen island top made from a bowling lane. There are many, many nails, buy extra blades. Mine was assembled with 16 p nails that were relatively soft. I used an RO 150 and stepped my way up the grits from 40 to 180 Rubin. I did not have a difficulty with the paper loading up from the bowling alley finish. Makes a great conversation piece.

[size=12pt]Welcome to the FOG.

Nice boat, did you restore it? Pictures on new topic if possible?!  [smile]

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

The best use of old bowling lanes is to heat the shop with.

They are riddled with nails.

 

[1951CorrectCraft]

I have a kitchen island top made from a bowling lane. There are many, many nails, buy extra blades. Mine was assembled with 16 p nails that were relatively soft. I used an RO 150 and stepped my way up the grits from 40 to 180 Rubin. I did not have a difficulty with the paper loading up from the bowling alley finish. Makes a great conversation piece.

[size=12pt]Welcome to the FOG.

Nice boat, did you restore it? Pictures on new topic if possible?!  [smile]

It has been well maintained, my grandfather bought it new. New west system bottom on it about 20 years ago.

 

[sancho57]

Darcy has a good point.

I use a lot of recycled wood. I buy it from a salvage yard. Mostly pirana pine (which cant be imported anymore and english green oak hard to find)

The thing about recycled wood is the time it takes to machine it to a usable condition and how much waste and how much usable wood are you going to have left over after the effort.

The pirana pine of get almost a 100% out of, the green oak about 60-70%. So it makes it worth my while.

Just something to think about while your pulling all those nails out.