First off happy Fourth of July! My holiday started off with a bang this morning when I put the finishing touches to the miniature bowling alley that I have been working on. I was a bit concerned about having to paint and varnish two different section of the alley and keep things looking good when I got done but all worked out well as you can see from the photos below.
Here's the bowling alley closed up and ready for either storage or transport. I added a small brass handle to one side of the bowling alley (case?) and two small latches on the end to securely keep it closed. The pins and ball are stored inside the closed bowling alley so that nothing can be lost when it is put away after being played with. The alley has a double pivot 3D printed hinge that makes this all possible. The alley folds up to a dimension of roughly 11 inches wide, 7 1/2 inches tall, and 2 feet long.
This is a good shot of the alley set up and ready to play. Ready to play it is not four feet long. Impressive to say the least. I was really happy how the red paint turned out and it only took me a few minutes to correct any flaws that I had found after removing the tape that I had laid down to protect the varnished sections of the alley. (Big sigh of relief and a smile on my face too!)
The laser engraving that I put on the side of the alley is well protected now with the five coats of varnish that I had applied to the bowling lane over the last week or so. I had to take great care not to mess this up when I painted the lower section of the alley. I was happy that it looks this good.
What bowling alley would not have lane markers on it? I thought this was a nice touch to the little alley and again being laser engraved and then varnished these markings should not rub off after hours of play.
To make it simpler to set up the pins correctly I also set up pin markers on the alley as well. I had to get the correct spacing for the pins so I did some searching online and found the correct pattern and used it to get the correct scale for the spacing of the pins. Should work out very well.
This gives you a good view of how the alley looks when you are playing the game. I like it for sure.
That's about it for this project. I am very pleased with how it all turned out. Again with not having any large problems makes for an enjoyable project so it's a good way to start my 4th of July. Hope you have as much success with your ongoing project as well. Have a good holiday!
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