Finally moved into the last stages of finishing the bowling alley table top. Stripping the finish from the top was far easier than expected. The thick, old finish bubbled up and off in one application. The exposed wood looked great other than several repairs needed to secure boards that had ball impact damage. Then it was all about sanding, sanding and more sanding.
Removing the old finish.
After trimming the table down to the width I wanted, I laminated a pair of new maple boards over the exposed sides that were filled with nails and splinters from the tongue & groove joints.
While repairing one of the broken boards I got a good look at a nail that is one of hundreds within the lane. These are the reason nobody will run your bowling lane through their big expensive planer, a process that would make the flattening and cleaning of the surface much, much faster. Probably for the best actually, because not knowing how thick the inlaid walnut arrows are there could be a danger of planing them completely off. Which would suck big time.
Almost done with sanding. The wood looks really great. I'm really happy about that because when I firs received the lane it appeared that there may be staining from oil between the joints of many boards but thankfully most of that went away when the finish was stripped. Luckily the guy I bought this from kept the lanes neatly stacked indoors. I've heard of nightmare stories of people finishing lanes that had been stored outdoors under a tarp and it it's an ugly process.
Three coats of finish and a light pass with super fine sandpaper to make it super smooth, and now it's all done. I'll have to put it aside for a couple of weeks until I my next trip up to the Puget Sound where it'll be attached to the metal base.
I can't wait to put it all together. It's going to be fun sitting around the table, knowing of all the bowling frames that have been rolled across it in the past.