Thought about some bowling alley wood

[Greg Urwiller]

I've been watching for some bowling alley wood to show up for sale. Thought it might make a great work bench/table. Saw some on CL last night for sale in Omaha, about 2+ hrs away. Called today on it. Asked about a couple of 12' pcs. WOW! Expensive! $600 for pine, $800 for maple. I knew it probably wouldn't be cheap, but I thought it might be a little cheaper than that. Actually don't need anything that heavy, but I'll never get anything that solid or indestructible. Oh well. Anybody else ever use this? Or is it going overboard? Greg

[Clint Olver]

I have two 8' sections of maple bowling lane. One will be a bench someday.

Those prices are crazy. I got mine for free, and the demo crew threw out 40 lanes worth, or apparently half a million dollars worth!:D

C

[Scott Holmes]

It will most likely have about 4,000 nails every 5' maybe more. Don't try to cut it with a good blade. Most lanes are not glued only nailed.

At those prices I think you could go and buy some nice new maple from a retail outlet and save money 'cause you wont need to replace 10 saw blades.

[Joe Rogers]

Scott ummm....nailed it! :DThe wood is good but the other stuff in it is a pain.
JR

[Thomas Bank]

I picked up three 12' maple sections years ago at $150 a section. As mentioned, lots of nails. I used a demo blade to cut to the dimensions I needed. For what I paid, I doubt I could have done it with new wood.

[David Roberts,Fitchburg,Ma]

It has been almost 25 years since I picked up a few pieces, and it sure is great to have. My first home had a counter that was 4" shorter than average, so when I found someone selling some, I grabbed it. I took some of it apart, to make the corner, otherwise easy to work with.
I still have two 2 x 8' pieces that are solid benchtops, With a solid base they look good. I would suggest if you keep an eye on craigslist , Materials, and a piece comes up, consider it if the price is good. Also high school labs and woodworking benches used a nice 2" maple tops, they are also good to have.
I think if you have a shop with storage space, you need to let Karma dictate your purchases, even if you don't need something this week, or even this year, when the odd item appears,buy it and put it away, (just like any investment) no different than putting money in a savings account.

[Jonathan Spool]

Greg,
I have picked up bowling lane tops a couple of times. One fir, one maple. $100 and $150 respectively for 8' sections. As mentioned be aware of the nails. Because bowling lanes are not generally glued up, there will be some flex in the top, but once they're set on a good base, they are solid as a rock, especially my second one, which I glued to a piece of 3/4 MDF.
Extremely heavy and solid. Good benches, but the prices you are mentioning are crazy. Where are you located?

[Ryan Hellmer]

Greg, that's crazy! For less than half that, you could buy a hundred board/ft of maple and make a 3" thick laminate top. Run it down to the local cabinet shop and have them sand it for you. I've built plenty of tops, mostly out of off-cuts from other projects. Rip strips to a uniform thickness (I start with 1 3/4" to end up with 1.5") then glue them into sections. I glue mine up to 16" wide (approximately 20 rows) then plane them to final thickness. The individual strips certainly don't need to be full length, just stagger the joints (I used to scarf them, but that was a big waste of time). For assembling to final width, I glue multiple planed sections using a double row of #20 biscuits. A little sanding an you're done.