There is a major difference between a ball being damaged and a ball being destroyed.......in this case the ball was DESTROYED beyond repair, management should have acknowledged that and compensated the bowler by replacing the ball with an identical one, covering all the costs, including the drilling.
Balls being scratched and scuffed up is a common occurence and unavoidable in any bowling centre, however some ball damage is preventable............balls being destroyed is becoming increasingly common, and I'm not real sure why this is, maybe it has something to do with materials they use in manufacturing balls these days or it could be the age old saying "they don't make em like they used to"
Balls jumping out of gutters is becoming increasingly common also, when a ball jumps out of the gutter, it usally means the gutter is not tight, when the ball impacts it, it flexs and shoots the ball back out, bit like a trampoline effect.
The amount the gutter flexs depends on the type and make of the gutter and where the ball impacts it, if the ball impacts the gutter between the lane trusses, you can expect a loose gutter or somewhat damaged gutter to spring the ball out with devastating results.
The worse type of gutters for this scenario is the bumpa gutters that split in two and are raised by air rams or struts, these gutters are made of a durable plastic which where manufactured with the ability to absorb ball impact by flexing, which is fine when the bumpa's are up and the 8lb ball is being thrown by a small child.
The problem arises when the gutters are down and a heavy ball travelling at speed impacts the gutter between the lane trusses which results in the scenario above.
The worst centre that I have seen for this type of ball damage is Strathpine bowl, at this centre I have seen balls jump from one lane to the next, balls which slam into the scoring camera's, balls that slam into the lower rake arms and even the return tracking at the downsweep...........they even had a ball that went thru the gap in the masking unit between lanes 10 and 11 not long after they first opened..............if that ball had hit the mechanic on duty, it would have killed him instantly.
Strathpine didn't address the problem by eliminating it, they just tried to limit the amount of damaged sustained, if you look closely at the rake arms at this centre you will see great lumps of heavy duty urethane/rubber protecting the lower rale arms at the pivot point. Look also at their house balls, the are absolutely covered in deep gouges, scratches and ball plugging repairs from previous damage.......repairing customers balls at this centre is a everyday event.
Neville
