I've always wanted to make my own bat, and after a chance EBay encounter last week, I was able to make this dream come true. Last week I noticed a few handled clefts for sale on eBay and After umm'ing and ahh'ing for all of 30 seconds I decided to take the plunge!
Here are the results..
I thoroughly loved the whole process and cant wait to do it again! My goal was to create something that was entirely useable and that I would be proud of walking out to the middle with and personally I feel that I've achieved that with the bat feeling great and weighing in at 2lbs9.5oz with the edges peaking at a modest 30mm and the spine at 51mm (very much a bat for the traditionalists)
The tools I used were as follows.
. Straight drawknife
. Block Plane
. Orbital Sander
. Rasp
The things I feel I could do better next time would be to leave more wood in the toe, and spend more time shaping the handle (although I was limited as the handle on this was already cut very thin towards the bottom and I didn't want to risk taking too much off) also, I would really love to find a plane with a rounded bottom to not rely on the drawknife so much in the final shaping. Please do note that I still need to do a finishing sand and a buffing, I just didn't have a few things available at the time of finishing.
Please share any thoughts or constructive advice for my future endeavours!
Author
Topic: The first of (hopefully) many (Read 9001 times)