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[SAF Bats]

As we know there are no national standards for willow grades from the manufactuers

What would be your standard for a Grade 1, Grade 2 and why?

[SillyShilly]

Are we presuming that we have to buy from a merchant who pre-grades the clefts? Or is it the case that we get to go through a massive pile of clefts and choose them and grade them without any external influence???

Difficult question Andy, your toughest so far i would say - Personally i think it is impossible not to grade partly on cosmetics, this has histroically played an important role on the price of said clefts - in all honesty, the more i think about it the more i tend to agree with wrights grading system as it allows a lot of leeway between what can pass as grade 1 and 2 with regards to cosmetics.

Personally i would suggest a two or three stage grading process - wherein there is room for grade 1's to be downgraded to grade 2's and grade 2's upgraded to grade 1's depending on how the clefts have dried and their responsiveness to the mallet, this is done after the clefts have been graded through cosmetic appearances.

You could give the bat a rating with regard to it's moisture content, responsiveness and cosmetic grading .........and you know what, the more i talk the less sense grading willow makes......like i said, it's a difficult question!!!

[SillyShilly]

Bythe way - other people please make comments, i'm sure Norb is sick to death of reading my posts - come on guys, make a cider-drinking, finger chopping podshaver happy

[mdl_1979]

I don't feel I'm qualified to grade willow.  I want a bat that will score me runs, end of.  I guess the cosmetics of it play to my vanity, so I would lean to plentiful clean, straight grains, but I am aware that doesn't necessarily guarantee performance.  When I ordered a bat last year I specified how many grains etc.  This year, I have ordered a couple of new bats from the same batmaker, and because I trust his judgement, have just told him to make me two great bats, regardless of cosmetics.

[SAF Bats]

Are we presuming that we have to buy from a merchant who pre-grades the clefts? Or is it the case that we get to go through a massive pile of clefts and choose them and grade them without any external influence???

It is the grading from the Bat Maker not the willow merchant. As we know they all differ slightly but the aim for everyone is 2 fold, provide a great a product  [I hope most do try and do this!!!!] and get the most we can from the willow stocks.

Someone's [the customer] grade 1 maybe another guys grade 2, as there are no standard, this applies to the manaufactuers as well, for example a grade 1 from SS may not be a grade 1 from Malik.

[Jamieh]

Gosh, think it would be really hard to have an overall grading system, as it would depend on two things I guess, the way the bat looks and feels firstly, i.e. grains, pick up, balance, and secondly the way the bat plays (I think people have sometimes referred to this as the ping!). The problem of course if that what would be a G1 bat in terms of look, feel and playability for me would be very different to someone else due to many factors.

Therefore, I think to be consistent you can only grade on looks as without going into massive amounts of technical details everything else would be quite subjective. Just think it is up to the manufacturer to be clear why he is grading in a certain way, and up to the consumer (us) to question it!

[Washington]

I think when you first see a bat and it looks perfect you automatically thing its gonna be a gun! So i guess we could compare a bat to a woman . . . bare with me on this.

When you first see a woman you judge her purely on looks right? Sometimes this beautiful woman turns out also to have a great personality so i guess we could classify her as a G1, there are other times when this beautiful woman turns out to be a bit of a d***! So this could be g2/g3 etc. Lastly they are those women who at first you dont think are that good looking and would mark these as a g2/g3 but turn out to be a hell of a laugh and become a g1!

I hope this gives a different way of looking at clefts/bats and also women! haha

[Jamieh]

Absolute genius!!!

reminds me of the old saying... doesn't matter how gorgeous she is, some guy somewhere is fed up with her. ;-)

[slogger02]

can you do a kashmir willow to woman conversion for me dan? must must avoid these at all costs....

without a tried and tested method of measuring bat ping then grading via performance will continue to be a grey area, to subjective to create a national standard this way.  moisture content can be measured but to do this for each bat is unrealistic.  therefore to me it seems the wrights grading system is the best its going to get at the moment and this should be followed.

[Washington]

Slogger, yeah been through many a kashmir willow cleft! haha! Mainly during my student days at closing time!! haha

Guess im just saying you never know what your gonna get til you have tried it out, and first impressions can be deceptive, but as with anything you get wiser with age/experience but there is always one that can still surprise you

[petehosk]

And other time the woman turns out to look ok - not beautiful but not a hound either -
But no matter how much care you take and how much you nurture her, and how well you treat her, she just never seems to lose that fragile status. And she never seems to perform well either!!!
Then she breask down suddenly not long after you have met her.

So that would be Kashmir Willow! 

[Washington]

Sounds like a bad experience to me pete . . .haha

[petehosk]

Boohoo! Sussed!

[Washington]

Stick to your bats mate they will never let you down, even though we will blame them for a failure or a rash shot! its the first thing that gets it from me!!

[petehosk]

Plus if you feel the bat lets you down, then you can give the bat a slap without any comeback!!!