Cleaning apparatus for bowling lanes

Abstract

The frame of the apparatus carries a pair of front and rear rollers extending across the normal path of travel of the frame during use, and a soft web of absorbent material such as terry cloth has its opposite ends coiled around the two rollers and a mid-portion thereof looped beneath a transverse fulcrum roller on the frame which is located between the two coil rollers. Inasmuch as the fulcrum roller is disposed with its lower lane-engaging periphery out of alignment with the peripheries of the other two rollers, the terry cloth web bears against the surface only at two spaced locations, i.e., either the fulcrum and the forward roller or the fulcrum and the rear roller. When the frame is advanced forwardly down the lane, the frame is rocked forwardly about the fulcrum roller such that the forward coil roller swings down into engagement with the lane surface to serve as a means for scrubbing and lifting deleterious materials from the lane surface after a cleaning liquid, such as warm water, has been distributed across the front of the frame. When the frame is then moved in the opposite direction along the lane in a return stroke, the frame rocks rearwardly about the fulcrum roller to engage the rear coil roller with the lane surface so as to absorb and break into fine droplets any accumulations of cleaning liquid which may have been left on the lane surface during the first pass.