Which part of the shaping did you find difficult Tim ?. It must be incredibly satisfying to use it in match if you would.
I started with one of the clefts that Peplow was selling, which had been copy lathed into quite a different, and concaved shape. This meant using the Drawknife on it was pretty tricky.
The things that I found hardest were getting used to how the drawknife worked with the willow and keeping it sharp enough, shaping the handle and the weight reducing concaving, as I couldn't get on with the travisher, and ended up breaking the round bottom one that I had.
You think its going to be relatively easy, but actually getting used to how the tools work with the willow, and the difficulties of doing "little" things is surprising. Also finding somewhere solid enough to attach the bat to whil eyou shave it with the knife is a pain in the butt!