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[Colesy]

Uuuugh Pete. My bat's a dud, broken piece of (No Swearing Please).


Only joking, I love my wood

[keysersolze]

I have to say this Forum is superb and is confirmed by the actions of its members in special regard to this topic in the way Gary from Redback is prepared to have a look at the bat at his cost. You don't get better customer service than that very often. And Mr Hosk coming to the guys rescue, superb. Before i read this forum and took its advice i have to say i was not prepared to deal with the scammers out there especially on e bay etc. Well done guys keep up the good work!!

[jonpinson]

Nice to see there seems to be a happy solution to this.

However if we can all learn one thing from it, perhaps it is that should we ever have a problem with a bat, the first port of call should always be the maker or supplier. Had that happened in this instance the outcome would have been the same, but without the thread that could have been potentially damaging to the reputation of the batmaker. It hasn't become damaging, thankfully but it could have done.

Pete's offer goes above and beyond the call, but it shouldn't be seen as an incentive to come on here and give a sob story in the hope that a similar offer is made again. I hope this doesn't set a precedent.

[petehosk]

I drive past Luke on the way back from work so I don't mind in this instance!!

And was just about to sort a nice Kashmir willow bat for colesey until I saw he was kidding!

[PedalsMcgrew]

Nice to see there seems to be a happy solution to this.

However if we can all learn one thing from it, perhaps it is that should we ever have a problem with a bat, the first port of call should always be the maker or supplier. Had that happened in this instance the outcome would have been the same, but without the thread that could have been potentially damaging to the reputation of the batmaker. It hasn't become damaging, thankfully but it could have done.

Pete's offer goes above and beyond the call, but it shouldn't be seen as an incentive to come on here and give a sob story in the hope that a similar offer is made again. I hope this doesn't set a precedent.

Totally agree with you Mr Pinson, to be fair though I doubt many people would think of contacting the maker of a bat a year after it was made and purchased in order to have them rectify a problem that is quite possibly down to the actions of the user and/or maybe in their head! What I have learnt is that the customer service and back up of this custom batmaker is second to none and goes far and beyond what I would ever expect or what I have ever received in the past in any area. If you'll note in my original post I do not name the manufacturer and actually ask for ways to increase the performance of the bat. I was  trying to ascertain whether it was me or the bat. Something I still do not know but hopefully something Pete is going to help me with over the next few days. I'll be the first to post here and admit if I have been an idiot (If Pete doesn't beat me to it!) and I'm prepared to take the abuse if that's the case!

I do think it would be an error though if people felt unable to question an individual bats quality or performance for fear of upsetting anyone on this forum. If we're only allowed to say good things about our experiences then the forum loses a lot of it's power and usefullness. Unbiased views are what I would like to see here and as long as people are always 100% honest (as I have been) and have no ulterior motives then I do not see any problem with threads such as these.

As for Pete's offer it just goes to show the quality of the subscribers to this forum and I hope that they and any 'lurkers' who may be viewing this topic will take note of the outstanding customer service I am receiving. For what it's worth I'd have another bat from this manufacturer tomorrow.  I love the thing and I desperately want it to work for me and if it's perceived lack of performance is down to me then I will happily pay any amount to have it sorted out. If anything the likelihood of me purchasing another bat from this maker has increased.

[Hads45]

In fairness to the OP he did only ask for how to help it and never slated the brand . Also I dont think a year after buying a bat id contact the seller, in fact ive been in the same situation with a bat and never thought to contact the company.

and I agree in his last post. If everyone goes on and tell you how good there bat is, it sets a fake precendent for bats. According to the forum there are many brands which make bats which are all amazing and perfect and have middles the whole way up. I will openly say ive used a screaming cat which was just ok, not bad, but not amazing... but if you asked anyone on the forum there opinion on screaming cats theyd say simply unbelievable. So I think its good hes openly honest.

[Simmy]

id say a bat only comes to full pontential after its been used for a season and its gone bit soft.

new bats "ping" the wood is still hard etc.ive got some new bats they feel fantastic but i will know more near end of season when they are propa "played" in

but i think u can hit the ball harder where the wood flexs more transfering the energy into the ball.

[jonpinson]

Well then we can take from this that no matter how long it has been or how unlikely the OP thought he would get a positive outcome, it is certainly worth seeking advice from the maker. I don't think for a moment that everyone would get such a positive outcome as here, it will depend on a case to case basis, for instance I don't think Hunts would be interested in replacing my 20 year old reflex that is now about 20% polyfiller.

There is no issue with the OP here, I just hope that someone doesn't read this thread and expect people to show the kindness they have here every time.

[GJ]

id say a bat only comes to full pontential after its been used for a season and its gone bit soft.

new bats "ping" the wood is still hard etc.ive got some new bats they feel fantastic but i will know more near end of season when they are propa "played" in

but i think u can hit the ball harder where the wood flexs more transfering the energy into the ball.

Surely its the other way round.

After a while when you use a bat the fibre's tighten and the face of the bat will harden due to the use you have given it. But when you first receive a bat, the fibres are loose as it has only been pressed so far. Thats why you need to 'play' a bat in, to harden the face.

Well thats the way ive always seen it!

[Simmy]

in theory yes u knock the bat in to make the fibers nit 2gether. but a used bat never feels hard when u hit the ball allways soft!

[PedalsMcgrew]

My belief has always been that the softer the bat the better the bat as long as you can get the face to harden sufficiently in order to create that 'trampoline' effect that we're all after...in the same way that the laminated bats work but to a lesser degree...Mind you, I can't tell whether my bat is good or not without getting someone else to tell me so what do I know! 

[jonpinson]

Must admit that is an aspect that confuses me too. If we think of willow in it's natural state it is very soft, incredibly so for wood. Pressing will have a hardening effect, compressing the soft fiberous wood into a smaller volume, then knocking in will do a similar thing, compressing the face further. I don't understand how a bat can then become softer through use. All playing in is a form of further knocking in, surely? Both processes involve hitting the bat with a hard object and potentially compressing fibres more so.

Similarly, I don't follow the logic of batmakers who are known to press the bat harder than average who say that the bat will take longer to play well. Surely if a bat is harder to start with, it isn't going to get better the harder it gets (through knocking in, or use)?

There was talk a while ago that soft pressed bats have ultimate initial performance, I get that. I don't see how it works the other way around though.

[PedalsMcgrew]

I think if you have a softer pressed bat and the face hasn't hardened sufficiently then you can lose performance as some of the balls momentum is lost in the wood, on the flip side if you have a harder pressed bat then you must surely have less of the trampoline effect as their is less compression behind the hard face of it? I think this is why laminated bats work well enough to get banned! The top laminate is harder and denser with a softer less dense lower laminate that increases the 'spring' for the blade.

As a bat gets older it gets harder, through naturally drying out and use and it must eventually reach a point where it's performance starts to suffer as a result of having less compression available to help 'ping' the ball off the face?

[jonpinson]

I think if you have a softer pressed bat and the face hasn't hardened sufficiently then you can lose performance as some of the balls momentum is lost in the wood, on the flip side if you have a harder pressed bat then you must surely have less of the trampoline effect as their is less compression behind the hard face of it? I think this is why laminated bats work well enough to get banned! The top laminate is harder and denser with a softer less dense lower laminate that increases the 'spring' for the blade.

As a bat gets older it gets harder, through naturally drying out and use and it must eventually reach a point where it's performance starts to suffer as a result of having less compression available to help 'ping' the ball off the face?

Makes sense and I think we are falling foul to the marketing departments. I was always told a softer pressed bat will perform better immediately but not last as long, so I don't see how in a case like yours, softness reduce performance. It's all very confusing!

[PedalsMcgrew]

The way I think about it is like this:-

If you think of 4 bedsprings lined up next to each other with a layer across the top of errrm, lets say aluminum. If the ball strikes the middle of the aluminum strip all 4 springs are compressed and the ball flys off using the power of all the springs. If you remove the aluminum strip and do the same thing your only ever going to be using the power of the 1 spring the ball hits so it must effect the power of the strike............musn't  it? So a hard face and a soft blade would seem to me to give the best performance. My issues stem from having a very soft blade but a complete inability on my part to be able to harden the face of it to get the performance I think this bat is capable of which is why I think my bat is slightly down on power. Again the flip side is that if I can get the face to harden up I might well have the bat to end all bats in my poesession as there is no question that the softness of the willow will provide exceptional spring!

Not sure if that's correct at all but it's how I think....!