Wow thanks!!! Finally I see one with great quality video on these beautiful historical Pinspotters

In the 1960's I learned to bowl at Boomtown Bowl in Burkburnett, Texas where they had AMF equipment. At nearby Shepherd AFB the bowling alley had Brunswick A2's, and my 8-year old self was fascinated by the different approaches to perform the same job. Until now I never got to see what it looked like behind the scenes, so thanks for this video!

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

3 жыл бұрын

That sounds awesome! Also, you're more than welcome.

The beginning of one of the greatest bowling machines out there

This house is in our area, its amazing to watch, the owner, Bill is a national treasure in my eyes, one of the greatest guys around.

I've helped this guy out a little with these machines. He currently needs a distributor motor, if anyone knows of one lying around somewhere, let it be known!

Hopefully this place stays alive & well for years to come. Too many commercial pinsetter models are now extinct because the alleys shut down.

@PinoyBowlerGS92

4 ай бұрын

And even the ones that were still there, they end up switching out their wonderful free fall pinsetters for the StringPin Garbage because managers/proprietors refuse to pay (let alone properly trained) their mechanics and they didn't keep the pinsetters in top shape. Such a shame Bowling is in trouble because there are lazy people working just for cash instead of saving the sport.

Приятно видеть как развивался боулинг и славно что это оборудование мамонт в выставлении кеглей и возврате шара славо богу что брансвик сделал самую крутую и простую в обслуживании и ремонте машину сочувствую коллегам работающим на этой рухляте...... Жду рассказов о поломках ремонте этой машины их так много что хватит на целый фильм....

after working on 70's for 32 years this is amazing !!!!

I don’t know what kind of Shuttle design this machine used but I think it’s a lot better than the Standard Shuttles. I’ve seen some of Double Shuttled Pins and Missing Pins at my local center with poorly maintained refurbished 82-90XL’s.

After listening to the A2s then 82-30, 82-70, and this, AMF machines appear to be quiet when compared to Brunswick.

@Jamison42166

2 жыл бұрын

you should hear a Mendes MM2001 magnet pinsetter.. louder than an A2 . watching them cycle will give you heartburn too. now an A2 with a metal pinwheel with the silencer cord missing really annoying

@PinoyBowlerGS92

5 ай бұрын

Until when AMF came out with the 82-90XL Pinspotter, the pinwheel on those machines are loud

I worked on these at Camp Lejune, NC 1978-1981

wow what a beautiful looking house! Plus your the 2nd person on YT to post video about the 82-70As

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

3 жыл бұрын

Yes sir!

I'm surprised that the A model still exists. This mechanic must've taken real good care of these machines.

It's fascinating to see this model version of the 70's. There is another video on YT of the A's, but the quality isn't great due to the age of the upload.

Was just there today. The bowling alley is still open but mostly from september-march

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

14 күн бұрын

Any videos?!

The 82-70A had a severe defect STRAIGHT from the get-go: the storage bins. See those perforated metal plates the pins fall onto? These wound up tearing the pins' surface apart, severely damaging the pins within 90 days of use. The machine was overly complicated in distributing the pins with solenoids; they were an electrical problem. AMF later came out with a newly designed distributor that was simpler in design and execution, but it also followed the same pin distribution pattern time after time, without reversing the pattern like the 70A did. All these improvements came out in the the first major upgrade - the 82-70B design - which eliminated the pin damage. The 70B also had and an electrical instead of the 70A's electromechanical distribution system. This electrical system eliminated a CLUSTERFUCK of problems that cropped up with the 70A. The distribution system that was introduced on the 82-70B was so good that it's still being used today, 50 plus years later on the newest 82-90XLi EDGE that QubicaAMF builds today. The only turnoff with this distribution system is it sometimes deposits a pin in the wrong position, piling up the pins until it stops working due to not enough pins in the correct position. A third-party company designed a system for the 82-series machines with a sort of button trigger. When the 9 pin drops into its bin, the top part of the pin presses the button, and when it's pressed, it stops the pin elevator wheel from rotating, eliminating the mess of pins when they go apeshit on top of the holding bin (without shutting down the motor that runs the distributor and pinwheel as the carpet continues to run). All the system does is loosen the drive belt for the pin elevator wheel to stop it, and in testing, it's exceeded 500,000 frames per stop.

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

3 жыл бұрын

Wow! Sums it up why there isn't really any left out there... I would hope at some time they would put like two lanes of these in a museum because they totally deserve to be in one and show what the 60s brought! I find that distribution kit that stops the wheel to be very interesting, is it a ZOT part/kit?

@Rodj12341

3 жыл бұрын

"The machine was overly complicated in distributing the pins with solenoids; they were an electrical problem." Tell Brunswick that. I do think QubicaAMF should look back at this design and improve upon it such as making the shuttle cups plastic, and making a way for it to only spot certain pins and allowing the distributor to fill back up those spots.

That is so cool, thanks for sharing the video.

Huh. From the two videos/films you mentioned, I had thought it still used the same sliding shuttle of the later 70s I'm familiar with. Thank you for locating these machines and getting these views. There's a separate, 4th motor to do the oscillation of the distributor? Interesting. I wonder if, somewhere out there, one of the prototype vacuum systems still exists. I really would love to see one of those.

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

3 жыл бұрын

If I had to guess, I'd say maybe we could be lucky enough and there is still at least one left out there. Like these model A machines.

@dangerousdan4184

5 ай бұрын

And a 5th motor for the "rolling" shuttle. Many newer 70's still have marked spots on the control panel for the "Dist motor" and "Bin motor" circuit breakers. Also, that motor for the distributor runs continuously, and there is a solenoid-activated single-revolution clutch mechanism that indexes the distributor. Ive been to this center for a look, and have helped the owner out several times on the phone. Nice guy, neat old center! The next newer model (70B) had the newer style bin and distributor, but still used that same chassis, minus about half the parts.

Great video!

And even today the modern pinsetter has most of the same functions they had early on. I work on GS-X and A-2.... Very similar operations combined here

@thefaballbowler

Ай бұрын

Spare time lanes in Decatur?

Holy crap this is awesome! You sir just gained a new subscriber

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Much appreciated.

seeing this reminds me of a labeling machine for newspapers i used back in the 1980's that was also a mechanical monstrosity. like something out of a rube goldberg design. by some miracle these machines actually worked!

Too awesome!

Interesting, did not know there were issues with 82-70 model. I know the 82-30 came out ‘52 and 70 model in ‘63. These are workhorses. Ironic that AMF purchased Brunswick bowling division in 1995, guess strongest are left standing

what did it have for a ball return?? I am assuming kickers??? Or perhaps humpback??? Thanks for sharing this....very cool.

Great to see these machines. Any idea why they were never converted ?

@drewlubka9689

3 жыл бұрын

As the person who took the videos, I spent the day talking to Bill, the owner. The story he told me was roughly along the lines of this. AMF would only lease their pinspotters in the early days. He said his lease was 17 years before it had to be renewed. When his lease came up for renewal around 1980, he had two options. He could renew the lease which involved a flat fee plus a charge per game bowled on the machines. Or, he could simply buy the machines outright from AMF. If I remember correctly, he said they wanted roughly $3000 (1980s money) per machine if he were to buy them out. However, he called around and found a company that sells and installs used pinspotters. He said at that time, he had the option between installing the same style of 82-70A machines that he currently had, or he could install a later model 82-70 but the 82-70A was cheaper and he already had a good parts inventory for them. He ended up letting AMF come and get his original machines (funnily enough, generally whenever AMF came to remove their equipment, especially older and less desirable pinspotters like the 82-30 and 82-70A, they would usually remove the pinspotters and take them directly to the nearest scrap yard). Once AMF removed his original machines, he had the other company install the exact same model in their place for much cheaper than AMF wanted if he were to buy his way out of the lease. As far as why he never updated them? Bill is a very old school guy. He's not one to give up on things. He still has lazy susan ball returns. Most people hate these ball returns because of their many faults, but Bill has figured out how to make them run well. He doesn't see the need to spend the money on upgrading things that already work just fine. He stated that parts are getting harder and harder to find. He also stated that due to his age, he likely doesn't have much time left in the industry. As he is the only person that runs Cedar Lanes, it's unlikely that anyone will buy the center and keep it operating when he decides to call it quits. It's only 6 lanes and it's in a very small town. Centers like that are hard to be profitable, especially with old equipment that next to nobody knows how to repair or find parts for.

League bowled in a house that had 24 lanes of these back then and into the 70's. Hardly a league night went by without some kind of spotter failure (you name it). The firehouse social club had 6 lanes of Brunswick A's (or A2's with the Red crown painted on the setter). Once in a while there were ball return issues but, generally worked flawlessly.

Really quiet compared to the later AMF 82-70's

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

3 жыл бұрын

Sure is, I wish they were a little easier to find and not just barely existent...

@PinoyBowlerGS92

2 жыл бұрын

or 82-90’s with the Pinwheel gonging.

a model is cool tho

Easy to see why this would eat up the pins. Nice piece of machine though.

the machine looks old

@FloridaBowlingAlleys

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, they're from 1963 and extremely rare to find anywhere around since AMF cut production a year later in 1964 on the Model-A and made the Model-B and tons of alleys that had As got converted.

@alpzepta

3 жыл бұрын

@@FloridaBowlingAlleys Interesting to see that are so many revision on 82-70. So much that they last though the 90s or somewhere Now this is more interesting than the Brunswick A2 that are common around me

It is interesting to see this machine work. however I can see why it was so hard on the pins. However, I think that best pinsetters were the Brunswick "A"s. They had no solenoids that I know of. They were all mechanical.