Hokay, now that we've had time to get to know one another, it goes a little something like this....
Having been a "big edge" merchant for as long as I can remember, I bought a rather nice Distinction from Tall Paul a few months back and found that I actually got on pretty well with high spined bats. And then Matt posted details of the new Tempo range, which ticked a lot of boxes for me given the impressive shaping and his skills as a batmaker (I confess that the slightly more understated stickers also ticked a box...)
So, we chatted. I asked for a long bladed bat weighing in at 3lb dead with two grips and a toe guard. He named a price, I liked it (a lot) and here we are...
First imperssions on getting it out of the box were...well, that Matt might need to get some bigger boxes for these babies. Yes, it has an "imposing" spine - my best guesstimate (it being hard to know when your eyes are precisely level with the spine and tape measure) is that it is somewhere around 73-75mm high - but unlike similar bats such as the Distinction, there is still a significant amount of wood elsewhere in the blade, acheived by an almost Laveresque tapering off of the edges at the top of the bat.
I was also quite taken with the pick up - I think I've snipped at a few people before for saying a bat picked up an ounce or so lighter than it is - well, I figured this for being slightly under my stated weight, maybe a 2lb 12 or so, so was very surprised when my scales made it 3lb 1.4! The grains are not the most even I've ever seen, but they are all straight and there are a good number of them...
The bat is really well finished - the only tiny thing I'd pick up on it is that there is what appears to be a tiny, tiny surface crack under the scuff sheet, though this is not going to affect the performance in any way and I suspect most people would not even have noticed it!
Spent about an hour knocking it in. I don't like to jump to conclusions based on the first hour too much - the best bat I've ever owned was a B52 that seemed slightly tinny for a week or so - but the response seemed very good indeed. What really impressed me was that the middle, as well as extending through most of the length of the blade, which you might expect, also went out toward the edges, which will give great stability in match situations...
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Topic: Its here... (Read 9927 times)