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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Topic: Handle weights (Read 2193 times)