Lord of the Pins: How the bowling alley works

The machines are arranged in a row that's 240 feet long: 36 units of gears, belts and levers, the red light atop each one signaling like an airport runway flare.

You roll the ball, you knock down pins, and the computer displays your score. But behind the scenes, there is an entire world of complexity.

When the thunder rolls in, muted for Julian Dullinger thanks to his ear protectors, its sound is deafening, much louder than what's audible on the other side of the divide.

"There are so many wires on this thing, it will drive you nuts," Dullinger said.

For more than six years, the head mechanic and general jack-of-all-trades at Westside Lanes and Fun Center in Missoula has been the lord of the pins, the master of the machines.

While Westside Lanes is open from 9 a.m. daily, business doesn't really start picking up until 8 p.m., and the center stays busy until closing at 2 a.m. At full capacity, upward of 280 bowlers could be playing at once.

In order to keep up with the customers, general manager Robyn Barker employs 56 workers whose positions range from accountant to bar maid.  Add a snack bar, lounge, casino, arcade, batting cages and mini golf on top of 36 bowling lanes, and you get a playful yet noisy atmosphere.

Behind the wall at the end of each lane, a Brunswick GS-X pinsetter is idling. From the rear, each looks like a big metal box without a top, about 10 feet wide and eight feet tall, with a three-foot ladder to provide Dullinger better access to higher portions of the device. The machines have a simple task: to sweep out the "deadwood," or the pins that were knocked over, and to reset those that were not.     

A pinsetter essentially operates as a big jaw, with the sweep, or large bar in front, extending to bring in felled pins and push the ball into the ball door.  The door detects the ball entering and then locks behind it to avoid pins following it in.  Then, a motor accelerates a belt to shoot the ball back to the bowler under the median between the lanes.

But before the sweeper can clear the pins and ball, the pinsetter must first lower a bracket of 10 spotting tongs. Like pinchers, they grab the remaining pins after a bowler's first attempt and then ascend with remaining pins locked in as the sweep clears the rubble below.

The pinsetter also keeps another bracket filled with pins on the ready to minimize turnover time between frames.  After a bowler's two rolls, the knocked-over pins are reloaded into a bracket and set aside.

Computers help the $50,000 machines accomplish their task. A single computer controls a pair of the pinsetters, which then responds to five main computers that answer to the brain of the whole system, the Nexgen Box. Whereas absent pins were recorded by cameras in the past, they are now monitored by micro switches that sense when the pins have been knocked over.

This computer reliance allows the whole system to run essentially without human intervention.  Other than servicing needs or help with the occasional ball jam, the machines are entirely independent.

In order to understand these systems, Dullinger had to attend a month-long course on the inner workings of the GS-Xs.

His favorite part of the pinsetter is the Nexgen Box.

"It controls all the functions, and there's so many things going on," Dullinger said. "It keeps track of what pins are loaded, what's there, what's not there."

Just a few decades ago, Dullinger would have been a "pin monkey" rather than a mechanic, replacing each pin by hand.

Automatic pinsetters weren't mass produced until 1952, when American Machine and Foundry purchased the patent and put the first ones on the market, according to the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame website.

AMF is still synonymous with bowling, but competitors like Brunswick have since established themselves in the field.

With the right care, the machines will run indefinitely, Dullinger said. In order to maintain the pinsetters, he lubes and oils the machines, cleans them with a towel and alcohol, and checks adjustment heights daily.

They are not easy machines to take care of either.  There are nearly 50 ways for the machines to "blackout," or shut down.  The word blackout is used in reference to the red light on top of the pinsetter going out, indicating a problem.

Generally, the pinsetters will seriously malfunction a few times a year.  Most nights, a few machines run into problems, but most are quick fixes.

Before Dullinger worked at the center, the machines would only run 750 frames before needing to be shut down and more fully serviced.  Now, under his eye, they are up to 3,500 frames per stop.

Beyond being the technical wizard for the bowling alley, Dullinger is responsible for most of the general behind-the-scenes upkeep.