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[glutton]

Hi I recently bought a bat (rather over payed because I always wanted to have a bat from this brand) that although I knew would need a refurb turned up in worse condition than what I envisioned it would. Although I have the tools and general gist of what I have to do, I have a few more queries that hopefully you guys can answer.

1. I have sandpaper going from 120 to 400 but I was wondering at what point do you go up in grades
2. The bat will need gluing, clamping and sanding but do I sand first then glue and clamp or the other way around
3. The bat has unfortunately delaminated (or at least I think it has) near and on the actual edge. I've seen suggestions about using a needle to get glue in there, but is there any other options and does it affect performance once glued back down.
4. When I took of the stickers I noticed that there was a small amount of wood filler at the bottom of the splice so as to even it with the face of the bat, anything to be concerned about there?

Here are some photos of the bat in question

[potzy248]

Whats the bat?

Always Glue and clamp first before sanding so you can sand off any glue that you manage to spread from the cracks.

[glutton]

Whats the bat?

It's a fisher 'best', made by Lachlan Fisher down in Melbourne. This one in particular is probably going on about 10 years old now. Didn't mention it in the OP as I wasn't sure about the rules regarding that.

[Seniorplayer]

Having had a look at the bat I would  first knock the bat in to recompress and reharden the fibres and  then vertically sand the bat using various grades of sandpaper starting with 120 grit upwards ( i tend to go upto 420 grit) as each smoother grade you use will remove the marks left by the previous grade until you get the finish you desire doing it this way you may not need to glue or if you do use glue it will considerably  reduce the amount of glueing  required.
When satisfied with the finish apply 2 coats  of raw linseed oil and leave around 48 hours between coats to allow the 1st coat to soak in.
With regard to the wood filler give it a gentle rub with fine sandpaper to see how set it is as its under the sticker at the bottom of the splice  it should not be a problem.

[sarg]

If you ring Fisher and ask Lachlan nicely I'll bet he'll post you a set of stickers if you tell him what your doing and perhaps email him a pic of the bat. He did it for me. Great customer service.

[glutton]

I did actually call Lachlan a couple a days ago and a new set of stickers, grip and extratec is on its way here as we speak. As you say great service.

[glutton]

Well almost a year later, I finally actually have something to show. Thanks to the advice here I gave it a shot myself, but eventually decided it was beyond my ability so gave it to someone who actually knows what they are doing. I'm pretty pleased with how its turned out, and surprisingly it still has some decent response off a mallet. Haven't had a chance to properly test it out yet, and won't for a while, but pretty confident this one should be able to serve as a net bat for the time being.