Bowling alley table: Cross grain edging, or another idea?

[Dan Lyke]

Newbie question: I've got this big hunk of bowling alley that I want to turn into a table. It's laminated strips of fir (I think), and while the top looks good (and will look great once I run a floor sander over it and finish it), the sides and ends look awful.

I envision putting some harder wood edging on it. Not sure what yet, but I should be able to just glue something to the sides. However, gluing something to the end seems to me to introduce some cross-grain issues that will probably end up tearing that board off after a few rainy to dry season transitions (here in Northern California).

Any suggestions on how to do this? I could make something that floats over the entire length, or maybe something that's biscuit joined at just a few places and use a finish that's flexible enough to fill whatever gap lies between the two boards and move with the seasonal changes (or just gets refreshed occasionally), but that still leaves the transition to the side edging to be worked out (maybe round the corners and have them try to meet at the corner of the bowling alley piece?).

Or should I just clean up the end-grain and polish that?

[Art Mulder]

You're right - cross grain connections are a problem.

Options?
- a breadboard end of some kind
- clean up the ends and leave as is
- get more creative -- I think it was a recent copy of FWW where Doug Stowe had an article on making tables with a gap in the middle to accomodate this sort of movement. It looks a lot better than it sounds.

[Dave Richards]

Dan, you might also consider doing a Mark Singer. He's got this cool trick where he miters the ends and folds it over. The same is done with the sides.

[Jamie Buxton]

Endgrain of doug fir is very good-looking, IMHO. If the chunk of bowling alley is thick enough to be a table, I'd leave the ends exposed. Cleaned up, but exposed.

[Tom Sontag]

I have a hard time believing they'd make bowling alley out of fir. I thought they used hard maple. Fir is nowhere near hard enough for bowling balls.

[Jon Fowler]

Believe it or not it depends on what part of the lane the you have. In my younger years I was trained by the Air Force to repair the lanes by cutting out rotten and broken boards.

The headers (first 20ft or so of the lane) is made from maple. The rest of the lane not counting the pit area (where the pins are) is made from a softer wood. The pit was maple and in many cases replaced with a synthetic surface.

[Dan Lyke]

Yep, Jon: When I was a kid my dad bought a length of maple bowling alley, which is what I was hoping for when I bought this chunk of wood, but it's clearly not maple: The grain is big and wide and, below the gloss finish, the wood is fairly soft.

After my initial disappointment (but, hey, it's more wood than I can lift by myself for less than a hundred bucks), I did a little research, and sure enough the touchdown areas are maple, but the places further down the lane are a much softer and cheaper wood.

A quick search found some pictures of Doug Stowe's split table, I'm not sure I want to do that with this wood, but it does look amazingly better than I thought it was going to.

As Jamie suggested, I'll have to clean up the end and see what it looks like, if that doesn't work I'll see about cutting a miter underneath and folding it down. I'll need to be a little careful about what metals may be inside the wood (I believe that there are some internal joiners), and may have to borrow someone else's saw to cut that deep, but that's a good option.

Thanks (although I don't want to cut off discussion), this has given me a couple of good pointers! I think I'm tending towards a trestle table lower structure, I'll have to figure out what woods would be good for that, part of me is thinking "fir? isn't that for framing?", and part of me is thinking that if I can get some that's actually well dried (maybe I get some "kiln dried" and put it in my basement for a year or two) I could match it up with the table and make it look quite nice.

[Jamie Buxton]

I think I'm tending towards a trestle table lower structure, I'll have to figure out what woods would be good for that, part of me is thinking "fir? isn't that for framing?", and part of me is thinking that if I can get some that's actually well dried (maybe I get some "kiln dried" and put it in my basement for a year or two) I could match it up with the table and make it look quite nice.

Clear or mostly-clear doug fir is lovely stuff. You could make a fine trestle with it.

Be warned, however, that clear (and dry) doug fir is now as expensive as many hardwoods. You can still buy it, but don't expect it to be cheap.

One alternative is to use the fir you already have. Cut up the bowling alley.

[Jon Fowler]

Dan

Word of warning!! Be careful cutting your piece of the lane. There may be hundreds of nails holding it together. Not all lane material was held together by lamination alone. Many of the older lanes were also nailed together. When chiseling out a 12 inch board to replace it with new material, it was not unusual to find half a dozen nails.