Pinsetter
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In bowling, a pinsetter, or pinspotter, was originally a person who would manually reset bowling pins in their correct position, clear fallen pins, and return bowling balls to the players. Probably due to the nature of the work (low-paid, often part-time, manual labor which most frequently took place during evenings) many pinsetters were teenaged boys, and thus pinboy is another name used to describe the job. In 1936 Gottfried Schmidt invented the mechanical pinsetter, which largely did away with pinsetting as a manual profession, although a very small number of bowling alleys do still use human pinsetters.
Many pinsetters are integrated with electronic scoring systems of varying sophistication. While many pinsetters have a manual reset button to use in case the pinsetter does not automatically activate at the correct time, other types have no automatic tracking of the state of the game, and are always manually activated.
The design of the machines varies. Several types of bowling make use of different designs for machines due to the different size and shape of the pins and balls.
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[edit] Ten-pin pinsetters
A very common design for ten-pin bowling (the Brunswick Model A, dating from 1955, as well as the developed A2 and JetBack versions of it)They work as follows First, the balls and pins are pushed off the end of the lane onto a shaking board the width of the lane. This board transfers the ball and pins to the next stage. Two large spinning wheels are situated with their common axis along the bowling lane. The ballwheel is the one closer to the bowler and is smooth on the inside; The pinwheel has many pockets which capture the pins.
When a ball rolls back to the ballwheel, friction lifts the ball up to the side where it catches on two Lift rods covered with a rubber material. Wedged in between, the ball is rolled up. When it gets to the top, it gets deposited onto a metal track which usually leads underground being pushed along by a long accelerator belt, and finally the ball is pushed up by two pulleys located at the head of the ball return track which is where it's deposited.
When a pin rolls back, its geometry is such that the first hoop has little effect on it. Still being shaken by the board, it bounces around until it lands in a pocket in the pinwheel, which takes it to the top and drops it into a metal tray, shaped somewhat like a scoop with the lip of the scoop facing the bowler. The pin is dropped in with the "handle" facing either to the bowler's left or right, but with the body of the pin centered in the scoop. The weight of the pin as it slides through the scoop orients the pin so that its base faces the bowler. From there a conveyor belt lifts the pin up, letting it slide into one of ten spots in a carousel. (This carousel, or "turret", is situated just above the triangular-shaped deck which the bowler can see when the pins are actually set.) When a pin lands in a spot, the carousel rotates so that the next pin will land in another spot. Once the carousel is full, the machine waits until it needs to re-set the pins. At that point, the pins are simultaneously dropped from the carousel into the spotting table, which lowers them all onto the lane.
This style of machine is loaded with 21 pins.
[edit] Candlepin pinsetters
The most common candlepin pinsetters were made by a company named Bowl Mor, which was founded in the 1940s by two attorneys, Howard Dowd and R. Lionel Barrows. According to the International Candlepin Bowling Association (ICBA), Dowd and Barrows were searching for business venture that could weather an economic depression. Marketing research on their part found that participant sports met this requirement, and that bowling was one of the top three participant sports at the time. The first Bowl Mor pinsetters were installed at the Whalom Park amusement park in 1949. Though no longer manufactured, refurbished units and ongoing parts and maintanance support are still available from several vendors.
Bowl Mor pinsetters have a depressed pit approximately 14" long at the end of the bowling lane, placed about 4" below the level of the lane surface, with a curtain behind it, hanging past the lane surface but not touching the bottom of the pit. The curtain arrests the backwards motion of struck balls and pins, so that they fall onto the pit. When a reset takes place, a sweeper bar descends and sweeps the pins and balls off the lane, through the depressed area, and past the curtain and onto a rotating turntable. Here, pins and balls separate, being spun off the turntable by centrifugal force into the elevators.
An elevator composed of a rotating rack of open frames (similar to an industrial toaster) catches the pins and hauls them towards the top of the machine, and then turns 90 degrees to bring the pins horizontally across, bringing the pins past ten conveyors each wide enough to hold pins in a lengthwise orientation. The pins fall off the end of the conveyors into tubes. Once the sweeper has moved out of the way to its resting position, the tubes are dropped to the end of the alley and release a set of pins, and are then retracted.
A separate elevator next to the turntable transports the balls to the ball return system, which has a near-vertical ramp which the balls roll down to gain enough momentum for them to roll through a trough back up the alley, coming to rest in a rack next to the approach area where players can grab them. Bowl Mor pinsetters are stocked with 24 to 27 pins, and are deemed substantially more reliable than typical Ten-pin bowling pinsetters. Most parts of the machine are driven by chains or belts. A Bowl Mor unit weighs approximate 1450 pounds, and draws 24 amps at 110 volts from three-wire 110-220 volt service mains. The ICBA lists the cost of a refurbished Bowl Mor unit at approximately $5000.
[edit] Five-pin pinsetters
Five-pin bowling is a popular variation in Canada, and pinsetters fall into two categories: string and free-fall. String pinsetters are more prevalent, and consist of machines attached to the head of each pin, by means of a cord. Essentially, the pinsetter is triggered by the movement of any pin by more than an inch or two. With that, the machine lowers a guard, pulls up all 5 pins, and resets those which did not move. At the same time, the machine returns the bowled ball.
Free-fall 5-pin pinsetters work in a way similar to their ten-pin counterparts, although they do not engage automatically when a ball is bowled or pin knocked down. When the player pushes their "Reset" button, the machine lowers a guards, lifts standing pins and sweeps away the downed pins. If it does not recognize any standing pins, it will set up a new set for the next frame.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- HowStuffWorks.com on pinsetters (describes the later Brunswick GS-10 and GSX pinsetters)
- Bowlinglinks all over the World, sorted by categories
- Article about a bowling alley that still (as of 2000) uses human pinsetters
- ICBA page about Bowl Mor units
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| Equipment: | Ball • Pin • Pinsetter • Gutters |
| Organisations: | BTBA • ETBF • PBA • PTBC • USBC • WTBA |
| Tournaments: | Weber Cup • World Tenpin Masters • Qubica/AMF World Cup • World Ranking Masters • European Bowling Tour • PTBC Storm English Open • BTBA Nationals |
| Terms: | Perfect game • Split |
Template:Candlepin bowling
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