Local teen uses passion for bowling, engineering to inspire others

HAMBURG, N.Y. (WIVB) – One local teen has combined his passions of mechanical engineering and bowling to give the public a sneak peek behind what people typically see as they prepare to hit the pins.

Joe Dayer, known as “Joe the Pro” on his YouTube channel, is putting a spotlight on how the mechanics work at local bowling alleys by posting tutorials on how to repair the machines.

His area of expertise is in the AMF 82-30 model pinsetter, which is the device that places the pins back in their original spots.

“As a little kid, seeing all these huge machines, just to set up bowling pins, it’s like ‘Wow,’” Dayer said.

The 19-year-old is the brains behind the operation at Cloverbank Bowling, where he first picked up a ball.

“I started bowling when I was about 5 years old. My mom signed me up for a junior bowling league here actually,” Dayer said. “I didn’t like it at first. I kind of pouted on the bench, but I got into it.”

Dayer’s hesitation evolved into passion, so his parents bought him his own set of bowling bins. When he went to set them up, his dad noticed something.

“The normal configuration, they’re set up in a triangular shape, but I was setting them up in a straight line,” Dayer said.

When Dayer’s dad told him it was wrong, he didn’t believe him, which is when his dad took him to Cloverbank Bowling to see how it’s done.

“He got them to take me back here and then it all started from there,” Dayer said.

From that point on, Dayer’s spare time was consumed with mechanical engineering.

“My friends would want to go see a movie or go ice skating or something on a Friday night, and I’m like, ‘Sorry guys, I’ve got to be at work fixing the machines and everything,’ and they’re like, “What?!’” he said.

What came as a shock to others was right up Dayer’s alley.

“My great grandfather was a mechanic and he knew how to fix everything,” he said. “He would go to his daughter’s house — my grandma’s house — every weekend with his tool box like I have out there and he would fix stuff for her.”

Dayer learned everything he could about pinsetters. Some, like the ones at Cloverbank Bowling, date back to 1959.

“People don’t really understand it a lot of the time,” he said. “They don’t understand that you can’t get a lot of the parts for the machine anymore, they don’t understand how old they are and they don’t understand how dangerous they are either. You really do have to know what you’re doing to be able to work on these.”

Dayer is now a mechanic at four local bowling centers.

“Being out there, it’s important as a mechanic because just watching the machines operating, you can see a lot of potential problems that will occur either soon or in the future and you can prevent it,” he said.

It’s that prevention and lack of people doing this type of work that inspired Dayer to create the series of tutorials on his channel. He said it’s important to get others interested in it.

“I’m just trying to encourage people to get into it, get their hands dirty and learn how to do stuff, because once you learn how to do it, you can be very successful at it and make a really good career out of it,” Dayer said.

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Sarah Minkewicz is an Emmy-nominated reporter and Buffalo native who has been a part of the News 4 team since 2019. Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahMinkewicz and click here to see more of her work.

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