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!
My dad ran an 8-lane house in Burbank California called Airway Bowl. It's gone and is a hotel where it sat. In an episode of the old TV show Adam-12, Season 7 Episode 11, Christmas. You can see it in the background as well as the old Burbank Bowl which also had the 82-70s. It is gone too from a fire. He told me about the day they were filming there. That old house started out with Pin Boys what he said to me and when I started going with him there they still had all metal 82-70 running. My dad put shop rags just forward of the pin-setting arm of the guard to help with dust and oil that may have accumulated on the pins before they were dropped into their spots. He was one of those old men who knew how to tinker and tweak the machines. Protecting the metal covered, before plastic, relays with hand-built covers, getting them working better than when they were new. One thing I remember about these machines is seeing an occasional pin fly out of them. Thanks for the memories. PS... My dad worked in another house with newer 82-70As AMF pin setters called Jewel City Bowl located in Glendale California. The old TV show Police Story, Season 1, Episode 6, Collision Course, filmed an episode in there. He was off that day they did. Wish my dad was here to pick his brain on the AMF pinsetters he had worked on. PPS... He worked with the Brunswick pinsetters only in places where the owner forked out the big money for them.
@@spokanetomcat1 Wow that’s a beautiful story! I definitely wish these were more common to see but being that they were prototype I get why, and many wouldn’t run half as good with poor maintenance that some centers lack. I will definitely check out the shows to see what the centers had looked like for sure! Hope you have an awesome day! 😊
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!
WAs a mechanic on these at Columbia Lanes in Pennsylvania before it burned about 15 years ago. Even though they've since replaced them, got to work on 82-30s at Manheim Lanes in Pennsylvania. Manheim still has their wood lanes though.
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....
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
"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.
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!
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.
I am sure it had the kickers when new. Our old house has the same machines I worked there in the 90's and man those kickers was a pain in the ass. They mark up ball and fly apart so damn fast. It was no big deal to install a couple kickers a night on a 12 lane house. Then we got the hump back shortly before I quit. Now they are a positive lift ball return I am told. That old house has been upgraded in every way. The owner is a great bowler and he likes to make things the best he can. They did away with all o those old relays shown and it is all black boxes now. In fact he changed one a month ago that went bad when the city changed a transformer and knocked it out. He said good bye to $8K to replace. But we have the latest quebec scoring system with lane talk the pin decks are lit in Led lighting. the last scoring up grade was $150K then they purchased a $30k oil machine. It is a nice little house I hate to see these old houses get taken out.
@@jvmiller1995 yes...the house I worked at had 70s with kickers when I first started....what a nightmare...especially when they decided to get 6 pound bowling balls...then we finally convinced the owner to upgrade to the PBL minis....man, after that I could actually sleep at night.
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
Wonder where you got that information? AMF doesn't own Brunswick? Why would Brunswick make their own products competing with (Q)AMF if they own Brunswick?
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.
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.
@@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
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!
That sounds awesome! Also, you're more than welcome.
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.
The beginning of one of the greatest bowling machines out there
My dad ran an 8-lane house in Burbank California called Airway Bowl. It's gone and is a hotel where it sat. In an episode of the old TV show Adam-12, Season 7 Episode 11, Christmas. You can see it in the background as well as the old Burbank Bowl which also had the 82-70s. It is gone too from a fire. He told me about the day they were filming there. That old house started out with Pin Boys what he said to me and when I started going with him there they still had all metal 82-70 running. My dad put shop rags just forward of the pin-setting arm of the guard to help with dust and oil that may have accumulated on the pins before they were dropped into their spots. He was one of those old men who knew how to tinker and tweak the machines. Protecting the metal covered, before plastic, relays with hand-built covers, getting them working better than when they were new. One thing I remember about these machines is seeing an occasional pin fly out of them. Thanks for the memories.
PS... My dad worked in another house with newer 82-70As AMF pin setters called Jewel City Bowl located in Glendale California. The old TV show Police Story, Season 1, Episode 6, Collision Course, filmed an episode in there. He was off that day they did.
Wish my dad was here to pick his brain on the AMF pinsetters he had worked on.
PPS... He worked with the Brunswick pinsetters only in places where the owner forked out the big money for them.
@@spokanetomcat1 Wow that’s a beautiful story! I definitely wish these were more common to see but being that they were prototype I get why, and many wouldn’t run half as good with poor maintenance that some centers lack. I will definitely check out the shows to see what the centers had looked like for sure! Hope you have an awesome day! 😊
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!
WAs a mechanic on these at Columbia Lanes in Pennsylvania before it burned about 15 years ago. Even though they've since replaced them, got to work on 82-30s at Manheim Lanes in Pennsylvania. Manheim still has their wood lanes though.
They scrapped them all in Manheim and have new machines now
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 !!!!
Hopefully this place stays alive & well for years to come.
Too many commercial pinsetter models are now extinct because the alleys shut down.
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.
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
Spare time lanes in Decatur?
wow what a beautiful looking house! Plus your the 2nd person on YT to post video about the 82-70As
Yes sir!
After listening to the A2s then 82-30, 82-70, and this, AMF machines appear to be quiet when compared to Brunswick.
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
Until when AMF came out with the 82-90XL Pinspotter, the pinwheel on those machines are loud
The GSX is the loudest in my opinion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I worked on these at Camp Lejune, NC 1978-1981
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.
Great video!
I'm surprised that the A model still exists. This mechanic must've taken real good care of these machines.
That is so cool, thanks for sharing the video.
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.
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?
"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.
Was just there today. The bowling alley is still open but mostly from september-march
Any videos?!
Holy crap this is awesome! You sir just gained a new subscriber
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!
Great to see these machines. Any idea why they were never converted ?
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.
Too awesome!
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.
what did it have for a ball return?? I am assuming kickers??? Or perhaps humpback??? Thanks for sharing this....very cool.
I am sure it had the kickers when new. Our old house has the same machines I worked there in the 90's and man those kickers was a pain in the ass. They mark up ball and fly apart so damn fast. It was no big deal to install a couple kickers a night on a 12 lane house. Then we got the hump back shortly before I quit. Now they are a positive lift ball return I am told. That old house has been upgraded in every way. The owner is a great bowler and he likes to make things the best he can. They did away with all o those old relays shown and it is all black boxes now. In fact he changed one a month ago that went bad when the city changed a transformer and knocked it out. He said good bye to $8K to replace. But we have the latest quebec scoring system with lane talk the pin decks are lit in Led lighting. the last scoring up grade was $150K then they purchased a $30k oil machine. It is a nice little house I hate to see these old houses get taken out.
@@jvmiller1995 yes...the house I worked at had 70s with kickers when I first started....what a nightmare...especially when they decided to get 6 pound bowling balls...then we finally convinced the owner to upgrade to the PBL minis....man, after that I could actually sleep at night.
This one has either kickers or pbl. Still running an old orange lift belt.
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
Wonder where you got that information? AMF doesn't own Brunswick? Why would Brunswick make their own products competing with (Q)AMF if they own Brunswick?
Really quiet compared to the later AMF 82-70's
Sure is, I wish they were a little easier to find and not just barely existent...
or 82-90’s with the Pinwheel gonging.
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.
Easy to see why this would eat up the pins. Nice piece of machine though.
a model is cool tho
the machine looks old
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.
@@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