Custom Bats Cricket Forum
Equipment => Bats => Topic started by: tugga on November 06, 2012, 10:40:31 AM
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G’day everyone,
Long time no see! It’s good to see a few familiar faces on the forum, Tom, Teatime and others. It’s certainly been a while since I’ve been back, I logged in and there were 473 pages of unread topics.
For those who don’t know me, I’m Tugga, and I was a serial poster back in 2006-07 on CSF, and back then had an abnormal curiosity about edge sizes and the like.
But yeah, here’s my Fisher Jackal bat, made by Lachlan Fisher down in Melbourne http://www.fisherbats.com.au/ I actually got this made for me a year and a half back when I went down to visit his workshop. It’s a neat little place, and I only went through the storefront really, but he’s got a line of finished and naked bats laid out there for you to have a swing, including his Australian willow bats. I had fun with that for a while as I was talking to him, and eventually found a bat that he had made for another customer which I quite liked.
(http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag90/tuggawaugh/IMG_1624.jpg)
I asked him to make a copy of that in hopefully a quite light weight, asking for around 2.7. I suspect he does weigh them naked though, as when I actually got it from him a couple of weeks later it weighed around 2.10 finished including extratec, grip and stickers.
The shape itself is quite basic, he tends to make a quite traditional shape, having seen quite a few other players use them, he’s quite popular in Melbourne. He doesn’t really do bows or concaving, which I’m not fussed with, I like a fairly solid shape, though I do prefer the pick up on concaved bats. It doesn’t pick up the lightest thing in the world, but I can still play all the shots in the book normally with it. Not a featherlight, but you can feel it in your hands if you know what I mean.
(http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag90/tuggawaugh/IMG_1620.jpg)
Based on my grip, he wondered whether I wanted a shortened handle which I hadn’t really thought about, so I thought I’d give it a try. So he chopped the knob of the end, and surprisingly it felt pretty good. I do have a tendency to choke the handle a bit, so I did feel like there was some extra freedom around my wrists, especially when I was going for my cross bat shots. The handle itself also is a very very distinct oval shape, which I love; I never really got on with round handles, like the handles that we get on the Gray Nics bats over here. It's quite thick too so it's got a really nice feel. I’ve slapped on a second grip too, I like the extra thickness and cushion it provides.
(http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag90/tuggawaugh/IMG_1607.jpg)
Appearance wise it’s not fantastic, six grains only, but it is his bottom of the range model. It does make a really good noise when you connect though, gives that real good crunch noise. Testing it with a couple of my old bats and teammates it does make a slightly lower pitched noise, perhaps it’s a little bit softer. Couple of knots here and there but it’s a fairly clean face. I don't go through bats really so I like them to last, so a tad fewer grains is alright with me. Having previously never had extratec, I've found it is quite handy, obviously none of those little surface cracks and whatnot.
(http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag90/tuggawaugh/IMG_1619.jpg)
Middle position is fairly standard, but there’s quite a bit of wood everywhere so it’s very solid in terms of ping. Middle is quite large, in terms of shape you could perhaps compare it to a GM Flare, a rounded non-concaved spine with decent edges and spine height. Edges are roughly 27mm but it’s a little hard to measure on this, he does like to make bats with quite a rounded face, so it kind of blurs it off. Spine height I haven’t measured properly but I’d hazard a guess at 55mm? Or thereabouts.
Here’s a really interesting webpage on Fisher: www.vwa.org.au/files/1913/4805/6066/VWA-Newsletter-1209-Sep-2012.pdf where he does a superficial review of the batmaking process and there’s a few decent pics of his workshop.
This one was pretty cool too: http://cityjournal.dsc.rmit.edu.au/2011/09/30/batting-up-some-winners/ where he talks about making Ponting’s bats for a brief period in the late 90’s.
(http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag90/tuggawaugh/IMG_1612.jpg)
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the shape looks lovely
How much was it, if you don't mind me asking?
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Great review. is the handle set a little forwards?
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Great review. is the handle set a little forwards?
was just gonna ask that
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You guys are quick on the ball considering you can only peek a few centimetres of the handle. But yeah, it is set forward quite noticeably if you have a look at it. Mind you, you're not aware of it of anything when you're lifting it up, but here's a pic that might help you out.
(http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag90/tuggawaugh/IMG_1600v2.jpg)
Also it was $350, which is pretty decent for a bat in Australia, considering the prices we get over here which are over $700 for top line bats nowadays. And yeah I really like the shape, well rounded, lots of wood everywhere. Has really solid rebound, especially on the drive.
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Means you don't need to Bow the blade when you press it as it creates the same effect.
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Welcome (back) Tugga!
Decent review and good price considering the high prices over there!
Nice to start having some reviews again. 8)
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Is this one made from the Aussie blue willow?
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Do you reckon you could get a picture of the bat from the toe up? Showing the concaving/no concaving.
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Looks like no concaving at all from the shot above.
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Yeah just the 1st pic looks like it's got a bit of an extended rounded spine.
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I think that's maybe just the way the grains/light make it look, you could be right though.
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Number4, nope, just normal English willow on this one, I still haven't tried his Aussie willow bats yet. They looked alright in the shop, but the grainage wasn't spectacular.
And yeah no concaving on this one at all, I can get a pic up in the next couple of days of that though. Fairly standard spine shape though, he hasn't taken much out of the shoulders or toe a la the Laver Ultra, its very much a gradual rounded spine from tip to toe.
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Tugga: thanks for referring me to this old review of yours - you've done a great job of reviewing this Fisher Jackal!
FML, all of these interesting workshops are in Victoria! haha
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I have had a Fisher Custom for a couple of seasons and I'm very happy with it. Nothing to look at but picks up like a feather and has a huge middle.
Picks of it here
http://www.custombats.co.uk/cbforum/index.php?topic=29503.msg466124
I cleaned it up over winter and rang Lachlan asking for a new set of stickers. He put a set in the post for me, no cost. Now that's looking after you customers. Recommended.
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Looks good, very much a Fisher shape. How much does that one weigh? Anything special when customising?
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2.9 with two grips. I didn't buy it directly. A ex Aussie county player, now coach I made contact with through eBay had it and I paid $280 delivered. It had been netted by a Vic district cricketer and then discarded when they got sponsorship. He also had a GN legend he was only asking $480 for and said that'd I'd just be paying for the name and the fisher would play just as good. I had a great first season ( for a forty year old) with it and think its a very good bat and I have used a fair few bats in my years.
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TBH I didn't know much about Fisher until I read a few reviews on this forum. Most of the discussion on Australian bats usually centres on Julian Millichamp and the Bradburys. I'm now starting to learn that there's a lot of praise for Lachlan Fisher! I wonder how his work rates to SCAT, especially considering both Fisher and JM advocate traditionally shaped bats.
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Similar makers, both very traditional.
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A new team mate of mine (I've gone up teams this season) has a Fisher that looks like its about 10 years old.
Its the type of bat that has more bat tape holding it together then you can think of, but it just pinged when I tapped it up with even an old ball.
When I bowled to him in the nets, he crunched a half volley.... about a second and a half before it would have hit the boundary I reckon if we had been in a game.
He was very happy with his and in absolutely no hurry for a new bat.
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Where's the fun in that ;-) there's always a daft reason to buy another bat.