Lane Conditions

[ChuckR]

What ranges of oil laydown make up Light, Medium and Heavy? I am bowling in a tournament in August at Southpoint which says it is laying down 26.365 ml of ICE oil. I will need to get my Melee Hook and Mastermind Genius and RotoGrip UpRoar ready for that condition. For personal knowledge is why I am asking what Manufacturers mean when they talk about lane conditions for their products.

[ep1977]

Did they give you the name of the pattern?

[RobLV1]

The volume of oil means very little unless you know the length of the pattern. 26.365 mL would be a very heavy concentration on a 35' pattern, and a very light concentration on a 45' pattern. The fact that it is using Ice oil, indicates that you will probably see less friction than if they were using Fire oil. What tournament is it? I'll try to find out what the pattern is when I bowl there tomorrow night.

[ChuckR]

I couldn't find a name, but it is a 41'. The layout is at http://high-roller.com/wordpress/?cat=10

[foreverincamo]

Looks like a meaner version of Eiffel Tower.

[bowl1820]

What ranges of oil laydown make up Light, Medium and Heavy?

Theres no exact answer.

This quote still applies "the overall volume of the shot probably has the least affect, as the length that the conditioner is applied can make the "volume" almost meaningless."

Knowing the pattern length, volume and ratio's is more meaningful. With the degree of difficulty being determined by the crosswise blend and the lengthwise taper.


Here's a old post I made:

First what is a unit of oil defined as, I found this in a 04/05 Spec. manual. (It's in the "Computerized Lane Inspection Program Manual" you can find it on bowl.com)

"A "unit" of oil is defined by the American Bowling Congress (ABC) and Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) as 0.0167 cubic centimeters of oil evenly spread over a 1 sq. ft. surface, which equates to a film of oil about 7 millionths of an inch thick."

Now in In USBowler Magazine Vol.2, No.3 Spring 2007 Page 12 Coach's Corner They have a article "Everything you wanted to know about lane conditions" In it they say,

Example: a piece of typing paper is about 400 units thick.
(.000007*400=.0028" A 16# bond paper is .0032" thick so that's pretty close.)

"A layer of oil 100-plus units would be considered "Heavy oil" and anything less then 50 units probably would be "Light oil".

Now in from other source's Oil, Medium and Dry is looked at in terms of length.

In the book "Revolutions 2" they define it this way,

Oil (long oil) were lanes oiled 35 to 45 feet.
Med. were lanes oiled 25 to 35 feet.
Dry (very short oil) was 18 to 25 feet.

Now in In USBowler Magazine Vol.2, No.3 Spring 2007 Page 12 Coach's Corner They have a article "Everything you wanted to know about lane conditions" In it they show it as,

Long oil as 40 feet or longer
Medium oil as 35' to 45' feet or more
Short oil 35 feet or less

Now in Bowling This Month magazine they rate ball's for Oil, Medium and Dry, the current issue is showing these patterns being used.

Oily is a 44' oil (High Street)
Medium 41' oil (Main Street)
Dry 38' oil (Easy Street)

High Street, Main Street and Easy Street, These are the Kegel Navigation Recreation Series of patterns. you can see them here.
http://www.kegel.net/v3/PatternLibrary.aspx

Now for a comment it's not how much oil on the lane, but where it's at. Pattern's can be adjusted to make short ones appear long and long ones appear short.

Heres a quote from a article called- "Lane Pattern Basics: An Overview of Blend, Taper & Application".
Click here for the article

"the overall volume of the shot probably has the least affect, as the length that the conditioner is applied can make the "volume" almost meaningless."

When it comes to Oil and Oil patterns there are many factor's that come into play about lane condition's and how to play them. The amount of oil is one of the smaller factor's involved.

I'd like to see house's post the pattern diagrams of the shot's they put out for the leagues and tournaments. Now I know these would be meaningless to 99.9% of the bowler's,

But it would be interesting to know, just so that when you went some where else. Say you went to another house and they had the same pattern as your home house. You could really see how the same pattern plays on different lanes.

Boy this makes me remember when I asked the question "Would you like for the house to post the patterns your bowling on?" along while back over in the other forum and I got ragged on for it.

All the answers were "no,no,NO!" or "No most people don't know what that stuff means!" or "you don't know how to play a lane till you throw a ball down it." or " It would do more harm than good" etc.

From all the negative answer's I got, I wondered why there was so much infomation published about patterns and oils etc. If no one uses or thinks about this stuff.

update:
According to Mo Pinel he does it by volume.

< 21 mls of oil = light oil
21 to 25 mls of oil = medium oil
>25 mls = heavy oil

I ran across this in a past issue of BTM (Bowling This Month). It was in a article about sport shots, but I think it applies with this post also.

They had a chart showing 6 patterns made of combination's of these, with ball and drilling recommendation's for them.

Pattern Length
Short (34' or shorter)
Medium (35' to 40')
Long (41' or longer)

Oil Volume
Light to Medium (20ml. or less)
Medium to Heavy (More than 20ml.)

[ChuckR]

Thanks BOWL1820. 1 Scotch and 2 Aspirins. The article in BTM gives a concise picture. I do understand that a lot of oil on a short pattern gives the ball more friction area. At 41' and 26.385ml falls into the Heavy Oil/Long Pattern conditions(less friction area). I will prepare my balls accordingly.

[JaxBowlingGuy]

Looking at the pattern posted, you should have decent free hook on the outside (7 and out).

I shot a tournament a few weeks ago in Orlando that was a 39' pattern and flat 2L to 2R. Used 33.3ml oil. Back ends were screaming. After actually looking at the pattern layout, it was oiled to 29' and buffed out to 39'. Had a very distinct OOB on the outside though. Never saw so many 3 off the right at any tournament.

When looking at the pattern sheet take into consideration the ratios side to side and load data. At the end of the day go in with an open mind and not set on playing one section of the lane. There are other factors that will also cause a pattern to play different like how many times its been applied. Usually it takes around 3 times to truly get the full effect of the pattern. That weekend in particular, the squads on Thursday night and Friday night seemed to score a lot better than the rest of the weekend.

Heres the pattern that was put out that weekend.

[billf]

Medium pattern with light volume (my opinion). Plenty of free hook outside and I would bet from 25'-41' will dry up very quickly. Should be a high scoring pace if the bowlers move left soon enough to stay ahead of the transition.

[ChuckR]

Many Thanks to all. The information and suggestions on what I should look for and adjustments to the pattern change are in my book.
I looked into trying to find what the pattern is called and Kegel has a WIDE variety to chose from, but I couldn't find this one. Can the machine be tweaked
to any layout the House wants?