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[Chompy9760]

Hi all.
After drooling over and being inspired by all the lovely bats made by the wonderful folks on this forum, I've finally got around to having a go.
I managed to get six partmades from John at Red Ink, three for myself and three for mates.  While waiting for them to turn up, I made a couple drawkives and travishers, which seem to work pretty well.  I also got a curved bottom plane from John, and already had a flat plane lying around.  I mainly work with metal, so going back to wood certainly had it's challenges!

My first attempt was this Grade 3 SH Long blade.  Starting at 1.53 Kg it was fairly light, so the plan was to make a 'high middle' shape, keeping it as full as possible, with 40mm edges and 67mm spine, and see where that got me weight wise.
Ideally I thought anything under 2-10 would be pretty good for a Long Blade.  I was trying to copy the measurements from a GN Shcokwave, which I liked the look of.


A fair bit of two tone here, but 14 fairly striaght grains.


I was trying for Max Edge 195mm from the toe and Max Spine 225 from the toe.  Supposedly to maximize the hitting zone, while keeping the weight higher, but I may have fallen for some marketing here.......


Spine went through to the toe, but man I had some fun trying to get that last bit straight!  For a while it seemed that everything I did make it worse


Ended up at 1.17 KG or 2lb 9 oz with a tape binding and a grip, without the need for any concaving, and did most of the final shaping with the flat plane. 
Managed to hit the intended specs, and Point of Balance ended up at 527mm from 865mm total length, or 60.9%

I certainly don't have the "Northern Monkey Shine" just yet, but I'm working on it

Next one will be more challenging, as it starts out 250g heavier than this one did.

[Northern monkey]

Cracking effort

[jayralh]

Like the shape of it. Good work.

[JK Lewis]

Fantastic job mate, amazing first effort, well done indeed. Get some cool labels designed to finish it off. 

[potzy248]

Thats a fantastic first effort mate. Well done.

[SOULMAN1012]

Great effort mate, lovely shape and looks similar to the shockwave

[Komdotkom]

Looks fantastic, great work!
The cleft sounds similar to the one I got from John that I made my M&H copy from - 2 tone and remarkably light. I also found this was the best cleft to shape for some reason, the timber just cut really cleanly.
If it's anything like the bat I've got, just be really careful knocking it in. I had my M&H copy put on a knocking machine and did an hour with the mallet but even with a good quality scuff I'm getting cracks across the grain and dents in the face. It's going to be a great bat, just might need some extra hours.
Can't wait to see the next one!

[Mfarank]

Cracking effort mate!

[Chompy9760]

Thanks to all for the kind words and encouragement

Komdotkom - yes, the couple two tone ones I got seem to be the lightest of the bunch, and there's a noticable difference in the effort needed on the drawknife when I went from this .395 Kg/L density cleft to the next one that's .454

Just starting to knock it in now, so I'll keep that in mind.  Actually had small sliver of the face peel off and jam between the velcro sander face and the paper (the dirty mark you can see half way up the LHS is where I glued it in), which was probably operator error, but other than that, so far the face is looking great, and seems to be pinging quite nicely.

From experience with my son's cheap Kashmir two tone, I'd rather not darken it up with too many linseed coats, but don't want it to crack up either.  Should I just give it the standard 2 coats and get used to the colour?

[Chompy9760]

With a few lessons learned, here's attempt #2.
Starting weight was was 1.77 Kg, also a SH Long Blade, but Grade 2 this time.  The plan was a similar shape, but I knew I'd have to use the travisher and curved plane to get the weight down.
Ended up with 36mm edge, 62mm spine, 16mm toe, 21mm centre of toe, 11mm shoulders, and weight 1.22 Kg (2lb 10.5) gripped.
A little heavier than first intended, but if it needs weight reduction, that will give me a something to play around with later

Next to the first attempt





Spent a bit more effort buffing a shine on this.  Hard to photograph, but it is there.
Still learning on the job - discovered that it takes a lot of sanding to reduce weight from the back of the bat.

[tuffers007]

thats a really lovely shape. top effort!!
what did you use to buff it?

[Chompy9760]

Thanks!
I used buff wheel about 8cm dia and 8cm long, that fits into 240 v drill.  Cordless just won't spin fast enough.
I used the product below, after experimenting with a few different waxes, including make your own linseed/beeswax.  This stuff is clear and doesn't yellow the wood.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/gilly-stephensons-100g-carnauba-polish_p1851537

A tip I discovered was to spin the drill with the direction of the grain (i.e. use CCW spin when working the wheel from the apex of the spine downwards to the right, and reverse the drill to Clockwise when going from the apex downwards and to the left.).  Not so important on the flat surfaces, but makes a difference on the back of the bat.

[Mfarank]

That looks even better than the first one! Cracker!

[Red Ink Cricket]

Great effort on both bats so far. Nice shapes

[LukeFramBurton]

Great stuff, keep them coming. The spine is looking top notch on the second.