craig said:
the guy that suggested the lowering of flat gutters, which is a major structual change to your lanes.
every lane and approach would have to be jacked up to make this possible.
living proof that sometimes its easier to say things, rather than do them
Craig, you make some good points in your earlier post concerning the consequences of the suggestions thus far.
Though I will have to disagree with you..........lowering of the gutters is no big deal and does not require any major structual changes unless the gutters are being lowered by at least a couple of inches, and I still can't see any great exspense in achieving this dimension unless you are on a stringer base in a very old establishment and the stringers have not enough material left in them to remove before you hit concrete.
Lowering the flat gutters is a simple job, remove the screws which fix the gutter to the trusses, remove the gutter, chisel off the required amount of timber from the lane trusses and refit the gutter, job finished.
On a side note and way off topic...........................
The lane bed and gutters lay across and are mounted on the foundation trusses, whether it be a stringer or crib foundation base design, stringer foundations are no longer very popular due to the added exspense of channelling the concrete slab, the majority of new centres sit on a crib foundations, however there are quite a few exsisting centres sitting on stringer type foundations.
The flat gutter according to the specifications should have a minium depth of 3 1/2" and a maxium depth of 3 3/4", measured from the playing surface of the lane to the top of flat gutter surface and in line with the back row of pin dots.
When the lanes are first installed, the installer will ensure that this specification is met, however over the life span of a timber lane it will go through sevaral resurfacers, during the resurface the timber is sanded away until the resurfacer is happy with both the visual look of the lane and also that the lane is within specifications concerning cross wise tilt and depression.
Whilist every effort is made to remove as little material from the lane as possible during this process, thus prolonging the life of the lane it is enevitable that the lane will decrease in thickness, meaning the flat gutter dimension will, with every sanding gradually decrease uintill it gets to a dimension outside the specifications, at this stage the flat gutters have to be lowered to bring them back into specified dimensions.
High scoring houses will, with intention use the minium depth (3 1/2")dimension allowed by the specifications, which increases pin action giving any pin that is knocked into the flat gutter a better of chance of jumping back out and knocking over other pins, usally the back corner pin(s)
Shawn