So finally finished making my first bat. I've been wanting to do this for ages and thanks to some awesome birthday presents this year I was able to have a go.
I'll start off with the tools I acquired:
1 Woodworking vice
1 Drawknife (10 inch straight blade)
4 spokeshaves (flat, round, convex, concave)
2 planes (1 metal and 1 wooden)
1 Rasp
Various grades of sandpaper (60-600 grit)
I sourced the cleft from John at Red Ink, it's a grade 2 with 6 evenly spaced grains, quite straight, no heartwood. The bat came handled, cut to length and the shoulders cut to a rough shape. I visited Globe Sports in Bristol to take a look at some bat shapes, decided there was a Phoenix bat there that I like the profile of and decided to loosely copy that shape. I haven't measured the edge/spine heights as i'm not a big lover of big edges. They are reasonably small for modern standrds. Kept the spine as high as I could which meant I had to do a lot of concaving (I concaved the entire thing with a spokeshave, so it took a while!)
At first I had to practice using the drawknife on an old bat, which was quite easy to get used to. The spokeshaves were a breeze to use (except for keeping the convex blade sharp for the concaving). It has been truely hand made, no power tools required. All hand tools, even the sanding.
I decided I wanted the spine running down to the toe, and am very happy with how it has come out (despite there being a couple of dinks at the back of the toe that I haven't sanded out as I didn't want the toe too thin. After finishing sanding I bound the bat first off, but it was really messy as I wasn't paying attention, and started from the shoulders and went up (despite watching countless videos of people binding bats on lathes) so I decided to re-do it this evening. Binding it was the hardest bit actually as I was going it by hand and my hands kept cramping. The rest of it was just good fun to make. I did think I would struggle to get both halves of the bat symmetrical but it was surprisingly easy.
I've decided (rather arrogantly) that I did a pretty good job of it, so I am going to make another one as soon as possible. However I won't keep hold of it, so will probably try to sell it on here if anyone is interested once it's made.
Rather than posting pictures of the whole process I am going to link you guys to a gallery if you're interested in looking. It includes pictures of the setup I have, not alot of space but enough to do the job. The vice mounted to an old cabinet. So a basic but honest setup in the corner of my garage.
I have new grips, pure beeswax blocks and a buffing wheel in the post to jazz it up. Need to find something to roll the edges with but other than that all it needs is oiling and knocking in *sigh* Oh and i've been strugglin to find someone to do me some sticker designs so if anyone can help I wouldn't mind some help!
http://s1363.photobucket.com/user/patriotscreen/library/?sort=9&page=1Oh, and it weighs 2lb9 dead with 1 chevron grip.
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Topic: My first handmade bat (Read 2415 times)