Thought I would post a little review of something I picked up mid way through the season. Appreciate the modern fad has been big edges, then high spines - well personally I had always liked the more toblerone shape (obviously different brands have there own profile name). Having had some lovely sticks from Tai at blankbats in the past and remembering the traditional profile bat that was for sale on here a while ago I dropped him a line to see what could be knocked up. Now as far as I believe (and I don't claim to be an expert) the right size cleft is required for this kind of shape so other than a thick oval'ish handle at around 2.11 with a grip I left the rest to the skill of the batmaker.
So this is what I received: -
Specs:
Weight - 2.12.8 With 2 grips (inc the thick GM, tape and opening up sticker)
Spine - 68 mm approx (its difficult to measure with the rounded face and no calipers - I need to take some lessons from Chad but will check next week)
Edge at sweet spot -28mm
Toe edge - 20mm (very bottom)
Shoulder edge - 12mm (very top)
Rounded face
Thick oval handle
12 grains with some heartwood on the right hand side edge which I think adds character
Spine blended into the toe
Nice light pick up
I have only used it in a handful of nets but it does come off nicely especially with all that wood behind you when you connect in the centre of the blade.
To try and show the profile a little better and to give the high spine justice I have compared vs my GN which is the highest spine bat I have (weight wise the GN is 2.11 with 2 grips although they are a little thinner / lighter).
The finish is tip top as you would expect, whilst I do like the black and chrome bb stickers I actually quite like the blue and bright yellow. I think there were previous issues of the back sticker lifting but considering the high spine and the slightly larger design compared with the earlier ones there is no sign of lifting.
The only slight picky points I would say is after the first net I found I was destroying the toe guard so have just added a dab of shoe goo. The second point is the scuff sheet was quite low vs the small sticker so on a bouncy net vs my lack of ability I found I was hitting the exposed face when defending. I have replaced it with one that runs right the way up the blade (yes I know you picky so and so's will say you should have given it a light sand to remove the cherry marks). Both are very minor points and I am very happy with the bat & the excellent service. Whilst I haven't seen the GN XP80 is the flesh I do think the toe's look wafer thin and they look to have a higher circular shaped spine in comparison, this is a more oval shaped spine if that makes sense (appreciate you are loosing some mm but a lower / larger sweet spot is more suited to our UK tracks surely?).
Sorry about the quality of the iphone pictures!
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Topic: bb Custom (Read 5456 times)