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[SOULMAN1012]

Evening Guys, thought I would share some pics of my day at work today with Andrew Kember. Firstly this is not pics of the workshop at Langley, this is Andrews own workshop at home where we are able to produce some of the finest handmade bats from both the Salix and HitsHard ranges.  Today was the first time I have worked on a 1:1 basis and was great to learn and watch from in my opinion one of the best at his trade.

Today for me was watching and learning about the skills that are required to produce a fully handmade cricket bat and one of the best days I have had in cricketing terms. My brain was on overload watching and learning techniques and also the attention to detail required in this trade. Also great to spend the whole day talking about willow lol

Here are some pics of clefts and the bats that we worked on today. There is also a few pics of my new stick for next season











These are some AJK clefts that Andrew was working on today, some amazingly powerful bats off the mallet in here. The AJK bats are all personally made in full by just Andrew himself. He personally picks each cleft himself and does all the work himself on each handcrafted bats. Hence me just taking pics at this stage of the day ( and eating a lot of Vickys home made biscuits and drinking tea  )





A bit more bow in the Range this year as well



Andrew at work on an AJK cleft







And no decent workshop is complete with out a mans loyal friend India the dog



this is the finite clefts that will be the top of the range this year. These are the same quality and grade as used for the AJK bats but finite is the Salix equivalent as AJK is basically its own brand inside Salix and limited to Barringtons only. These are the best of the Willow that Andrew has.





A SLX G1 cleft the range this year is Finite, players and G1 in this range so this is entry level in this range.



These are a few pics of Asad's bat that he hand picked recently, didn't take any pics but one of them I wanted to take home with me, huge for the weight and the power of a Cannon. Any way here are a few pics I took of Asad's collection







This is grade 3 entry level HitsHard cleft but on my god does this bat fly, this is the one I could have taken home with me purely on performance

[Torque]

  this looks unreal!

[thedevil]

I really love how tidy the whole set up looks at Andrews place, looks really professional. It really shouts out quality

[VKS]

Fantastic photos Chris and an added insight into the genius that he is.

Andrew and Vicky actually came into see us last Friday and after showing us the new range, we all went out for lunch together. Whats great about them is that they are really passionate about what they do and its not all about making money. Each bat really is a work of art and it can be seen in the finishing and the attention to detail thats there in every bat sticker. Vicky showed us the new SLX artwork on her laptop and how they themselves design all their artwork personally as opposed to sending it out to a design firm.

Andrew specifically requested we allow him to personally select all our bats this year, so naturally we are looking forward to our first delivery and more thereafter.

[Uzi Sports]

Chris,
Has he started working on my bats yet?

[SOULMAN1012]

Chris,
Has he started working on my bats yet?

Yes mate he was working on all yours for a large part of the day. If your happy to I have a few photos of a selection of your bats that we worked on today but would not want to post them without your permission. Tapping some of yours on the mallet today OH MY GOD one almost blew the mallet out of my hands. You picked some amazing bats mate.

[Uzi Sports]

Chris Plz post

[Red Ink Cricket]

Not only does he have one workshop better than mine, he has 2! He also has 2 presses. Loads of nice willow too! Talk about being greedy! Come on mr K share it out a little

[SOULMAN1012]

Not only does he have one workshop better than mine, he has 2! He also has 2 presses. Loads of nice willow too! Talk about being greedy! Come on mr K share it out a little

Yea lets just say he has 2 presses

[Krs]

Can someone please enlighten me.

Andrew  works for salix and also has his own brand called ....... Hitshard?

[Alvaro]

Andrew Kember is Salix.

Chris is better placed to divulge on HH.

[Torque]

And Andrew has his own 'sub-brand' called AJK; a limited run of premium products.

[AlanB]

Now this is what I call working from home.

Fascinating pictures and the ethos behind Salix shines through.

Also interesting to hear the thinking behind the brands, models and grades for 2014.

Makes me a prouder owner of my Salix bat.

[SOULMAN1012]

Can someone please enlighten me.

Andrew  works for salix and also has his own brand called ....... Hitshard?

Andrew owns Salix and started the brand in the 90's. last year we released HItshard as a sister brand to offer fully handmade bats at a lower price point. We also wanted to to separate this brand from Salix so used a completely different design concept but still fully overseen by Andrew and Ben.

At the Croydon net KRS I will explain and show you some HitsHard gear and let you have a hit with my bats. Hope that gives a basic answer to your question

[Uzi Sports]

Yes mate he was working on all yours for a large part of the day. If your happy to I have a few photos of a selection of your bats that we worked on today but would not want to post them without your permission. Tapping some of yours on the mallet today OH MY GOD one almost blew the mallet out of my hands. You picked some amazing bats mate.

As u know I also got 4 special bats , 2 of them are unique as they have stickers which are not released. I also have pod grade 1 and torque player, will post photos soon