Good morning gentlemen, I actually wasn't expecting such a strong response - but thankyou for the compliments all the same.
Those edges might need some rounding off but it's a quality piece of work!
The edges adjacent to the face get a further "burnishing"/rolling at the time when the face sheet is applied, this used to involve running the face of the blade across the nice radius on top of an enamel coated basin which smooths things nicely and is beneficial to the face (effectively lightly case hardening).
Other makers refer a similar process as "Boning", but this has a dangerous double meaning - who knew?
The edges on the back faces and contoured shoulders of the bat, I always used to leave these "crisp" as to my mind at least it demonstrated a level of precision, care and attention to detail in the shaping but particularly the sanding process. At most all edges got a few light wipes with the wet and dry, just to break the sharpness it seemed to me other makers rounded the hell out of their bats to hide wonky and offcentre spines and such.
Perhaps I'm wrong? Perhaps I was too much of a Perfectionist?
Real Aussie bat that with loads of meat up the blade!
Looks great! Lamitoe as standard?! Quality
Hi Ginger, yes I used to laminate the toes of all my bats as standard. I feel in combination with a rubberised "grind-to-fit" toe guard this is the strongest counter to Yorker damage yet devised.
The first one I cut by hand using a fine Japanese pull saw, a slender pairing chisel and [of course] patience, the resulting joint was really "smick" - so I continued it albeit using a router table (and more recently a Deckel milling machine) and piloted biscuit jointing bit .
IIRC the inclusion of "Lamitoe" would prevent it being classified a so called "Grade A" bat, and preclude their use at first class and Test level - however as a maker and player I'd sooner have it than not ("its all help and no hindrance").
Lets face it if an end-user were to reach either of those levels on the form of one of my bats, I'd surely see my way clear to producing another bat for them for match use with the lamitoe omitted. I believe The use of lamitoe wasn't the spirit in which the MCC laws were written, but alas it was an unintended casualty.
Good to see you back Glen how are things? You definitely not lost your skills - bat is a beauty!
It's been a while Chris, all good mate - how's things with you?
From memory you were an engineer of some description were you not? How familiar are you with AutoCAD Inventor, There's a small side project that I've stalled on?
So when are you coming out of "retirement"?
Another little eclectic mix of bat photo's:
This has been my match/practise/everything bat for the last handful of years - Immense rebound and the pick up & balance is really slick!
A few more
A few more
A few more
This was a prototype I messed around with, that had the spine cut away in Stuart Surridge "Jumbo" fashion. The binding has just been tightly applied and an external layer of glue pasted over.