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[JK Lewis]

Morning bat nerds!

It was too wet to walk the dog yesterday evening, so I took the chance to see where all my clefts have got to. The rafters of the garage have proven to be a very good drying environment - warm enough and with excellent airflow, especially when I leave the door open. So weight has been dropping off very regularly across the batch, and at quite a rate, around 1.8-2.0 kilos per cleft so far.

3 or 4 of the clefts have now reached my target density. The rest are nearly there, my guess is that they will all be ready by the end of June. This seems quite fast compared to the 6 months drying time I was expecting. My best guess on the reasons for this is that the warm environment is very conducive to drying, and also that the relatively few clefts I've got has allowed me to space them out well. I have not had to stack the clefts in tight piles. Being able to offer almost the full surface area to the airflow has probably helped them to dry faster.

What's good is that there has been no warping or twisting during the drying process, which was the problem I experienced with my first tree last year. Older, straighter wood, in much bigger cuts, has definitely made a difference. There are some cracks and small splits that have appeared, but a lot of these areas will be sawn or planed off when I process the wood further.

I've now had a bash at grading them as well, and noted a few issues during the inspection. The grading is my own system of course, J1 to J3 - with J1 being the best. I've detailed all the data in the image attached, appreciate it may not all be entirely obvious to the outside observer!



Overall I'm happy with progress. I'm taking 3 of the clefts out for planing - hopefully later today - so I can get a closer look at the quality of the wood. All the clefts are massive, so there's plenty that can be taken off, in all directions.

I'll keep you up to date with developments. Any questions, fire away.

All the best, Justin

[Calzehbhoy]

Anybody else looking through the list trying to work out which cleft will make a 2'10 Warner?

[Number4]

Great work... this thread and your other one are the 2 best topics in a long time on here... Well done for giving it a go...

I'm not sure how long it takes to dry a cleft but I'd be concerned if it was drying too fast which could cause cracking, splitting, brittleness, prematurely failing.

All the bats we see breaking in half these days, is it cause by artificially drying faster than the optimum drying time causing stress in the timber.

 I have no idea what I'm talking about but it's certainly something to think about

[JK Lewis]

Yes, I'm interested to see what I find after planing a few clefts up. I guess that I might have been able to slow the drying down if I had packed them tightly together, maybe this is why the big suppliers store them like that. I was thinking it was just a space issue, but in fact it could be that a longer process is more suitable - not sure. But, my clefts have dried naturally, there's been no forced drying with a kiln, so I'm hopeful that they will be OK.

[JK Lewis]

Anybody else looking through the list trying to work out which cleft will make a 2'10 Warner?

Ha ha yes! There's no doubt the clefts are big enough, I could make bats with 60-70 mm edges out of some of these. It remains to be seen how much they will weigh...

[Number4]

Hey Justin maybe another think to think about is consistent drying with such thick clefts... is the willow going to be "damp" once the outer willow is removed.

This is going to be an awesome experiment

[JK Lewis]

Hey Justin maybe another think to think about is consistent drying with such thick clefts... is the willow going to be "damp" once the outer willow is removed.

This is going to be an awesome experiment

Yes, you're right, my lack of a moisture meter means that I am still going off my calculated densities. I really ought to cut one cleft in half and see what I find in the middle. What I might do is cut a couple inches off the end of one, so the cleft is not completely donated to science, as it were. For now, I plan to remove wood from all sides of the first 3 clefts, and then measure the densities again. As you say, the middle may be considerably 'wetter' than the outer wood.

[Wickets-then-runs]

The clefts you cut shorter can always be used for T20 shorter style bats

[JK Lewis]

The clefts you cut shorter can always be used for T20 shorter style bats

That's a good idea too, I was thinking Junior bats but T20 could work. But, where do they get the special long handles?? I'm thinking about those Mongoose bats. No idea where they come from! More research needed.

[InternalTraining]

@JK Lewis , If you can give it a nice bow, I would be interested in a BIG Warner style bat. 😊

[JK Lewis]

@JK Lewis , If you can give it a nice bow, I would be interested in a BIG Warner style bat. 😊

You mean one that is as big as it can be @InternalTraining, above and beyond the new bat regs? I'll be looking at this later in the summer, so no problem. What sort of weight would you be after?

I don't have a press of my own, by the way, but there are friends of mine who do have so the bow would be easy to manage.

[InternalTraining]

Weight: 2-11, no stickers,  no toe guard, no scuff sheet and single grip. Warner shape. Nice , healthy toe. I am knocking my XP-80 and toe is already cracking - I wonder what disaster real balls would have wrought on it.

[i12breakfree]

I heard warner uses 1 cm shorter and slight narrow blade .

[InternalTraining]

@JK Lewis , Once you have the cleft, let me know and I will send you the exact specs of my Warner.

[Calzehbhoy]

@JK Lewis , Once you have the cleft, let me know and I will send you the exact specs of my Warner.

Please?