Custom Bats Cricket Forum
Equipment => Bats => Topic started by: wilkie113 on April 17, 2013, 10:43:09 PM
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How much can the weight of a handle vary?
I've got 3/4 bats that all weigh around the same weight, all low middled bats, and the one that is a little heavier picks up the best. Now I know this could be to do with the balancing of the bat, but could this also be something to do with how much the handle weighs or is this some crap I've made up in my head?!
Cheers
Tom
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When i was at GM i was told that handles can vary by a few ounces.
A heavier handle would give a lighter pickup.
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So a couple of ounces at the handle extra would obviously effect the pick up quite a lot I'm imagining.
Cheers for the swift reply Jake
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As Jake said its ounces.
For instance, Julian Millichamp offer two style of handles, one is 5 ounces and other is 8 ounces if I'm not mistaken.
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They can vary anywhere from 9oz to 15oz which can make a massive difference.
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They can vary anywhere from 9oz to 15oz which can make a massive difference.
got to agree with that. most i have atm are around 10-12oz
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Just as the density and weight of a cleft of willow can vary, so can cane.
More years ago than I care to recount, I used to make my own fishing floats, and one of the materials that I used was cane.
For one specific type of float the aim was to achieve a delicate imbalance between the buoyant material (balsa) and a more dense material (cane).
To achieve this, the cane needed to sink, so, as with the bat maker buying his clefts, I bought cane by the bundle (it was a lot cheaper than willow clefts).
To find out which canes sank I half filled the bath with water and dumped the canes in. In simple terms, the ones that floated were rejected, the ones that sank were selected for use.
Had I been more scientific I could perhaps have measured sink rates etc. but I wasn't a total nerd in this respect.
So far, so good, but there was another interesting development.
Some canes sank at one end, and floated at the other, so that clearly they were heavier at one end than the other.
Well, what has this got to do with bat handles?
First, it does confirm, what we would all have guessed, that some handles will be heavier than others.
But further to that, what if a handle were made with those canes that were light at one end and heavy at the other?
With the heavy end at the top of the handle you would possibly get a natural, but reasonably subtle, counterbalance effect that would enhance the pick up.
The natural world - it's a wonderful place!
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Cheers for the answers guys, I knew they would vary in weight but not as drastically as mentioned.
So theoretically if your not wanting a huge edged 2'7 beast, a request for a heavier handle would help the battle of achieving a light pick up.
Explains why my hattori feels a hell of a lot lighter than it is.
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Cheers for the answers guys, I knew they would vary in weight but not as drastically as mentioned.
So theoretically if your not wanting a huge edged 2'7 beast, a request for a heavier handle would help the battle of achieving a light pick up.
Explains why my hattori feels a hell of a lot lighter than it is.
no - because by asking for a heavier handle you are taking wood away from the bat. Therefore ending up with something less than a beast, more a twiglet. What you want is a top heavy light handle. This will add willow back into the bat but also counterbalance the bat and aid pickup.
Good luck with that!
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no - because by asking for a heavier handle you are taking wood away from the bat. Therefore ending up with something less than a beast, more a twiglet. What you want is a top heavy light handle. This will add willow back into the bat but also counterbalance the bat and aid pickup.
Good luck with that!
And how do you propose I find a top heavy handle Einstein?!
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And how do you propose I find a top heavy handle Einstein?!
As he said.... Good luck with that...!
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not that hard, you need to find some handles before they go on a cleft and work out where the pivot point in the handle is.
you want the pivot point to be nearer the top of the handle.
just a step on from choosing a light cleft.
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Also leaving the handle thicker on the top would help..
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Also leaving the handle thicker on the top would help..
Or develop a legal handle where some of the cane/rubber has been replaced by a heavier material such as resin.........
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Just mix lead dust in with the glue before assembling the handle ;) Haha
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What I forgot to add in respect of my cane 'dissertation' was that the denser canes were also harder (to cut/work) and stiffer than the lighter ones - they were harder to break too.