Quick one - been avoiding batmaking for a while due to personal reasons etc, so had loads of clefts just lying around. Picked out this one which has a gorgeous Butterfly stain right in the low driving zone, so decided I'd attempt to make one of the profiles that I regretted selling back in the day - my L&W PB Screaming Cat style bat. I believe it was modelled after one of Hosk's ones. I'll admit, I never really looked at the images much, I just had the general shape in mind... Maybe I should have referred back to them in hindsight...
And I guess the spec is not too dissimilar to the Millichamp Puma profile:
Well, here she is. I'm a bit upset that I've lost the flow in the edges a bit, and some of the boning that was done to the edges and face ended up being a touch uneven, the toe is a bit wonk - but who said batmaking is easy? Looking at images in better light, seems like I could have spent a bit more time sanding the shoulders and blending them in a bit nicer too.
I think one thing I learned from making this bat is that I should actually ensure the edges are flat prior to drawing the edge profiles on. I think this particular piece just had a bat time with the surface planer during the processing, and I should have just taken 2 minutes and orbital sanded this flat. I'm not saying it is the reason the edge isn't quite right, but especially in a dimly lit environment at night, not the easiest to follow!
All in all, I'm pretty happy with this attempt - Butterfly isn't the easiest to work with, you do have hard spots to contend with. I think I could have made it a bit thinner at the shoulder area in hindsight, but I think I followed the rough principles of the shape, and have ended up with a fairly well balanced lump of wood with a big hitting zone. I think next time I attempt this, the different approach I'd take would be to have the edge taper towards the shoulder, but not taper so much towards the toe. I'd also probably also try have the spine flatten into the toe, rather than the mess I've done here - that'll hopefully offset the additional mass at the edge towards the toe. Perhaps even have the swell a little bigger as well, and have the angle ever so slightly steeper running towards the splice, just to really exaggerate that spine height, while keeping the general flow that I adore about these classical bats.
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Topic: Chad's Batmaking Thread (The first Bat Shaper in Scotland?!) (Read 30317 times)