Re: Hard Maple for Baseball Bats

[Jeff]

Well, the truth is, this is an ad, and the rules for new members posting ads is pretty much spelled out in the commerce section. As much as this topic interests me, we have our rules. for now this is going to have to be removed.  Masher, we certainly can bring it back once certain guidelines for posting ads have been met. To start that process, tell us about what you do!  You are very much welcome here on the Forestry Forum.

[Masher]

I make baseball bats and I'm looking for wood to make them with? Is there a specific area that I should have posted that message?

Didn't mean to step on anyones toes, sorry.

[Bro. Noble]

Welcome to the forum,

I'd like to know more about your bat making.  I suppose you use a duplicating lathe?  I really enjoy watching those work.  Do you have pictures of your machinery?

[Jeff]

I make baseball bats and I'm looking for wood to make them with? Is there a specific area that I should have posted that message?

Didn't mean to step on anyones toes, sorry.

Nope your not stepping on toes at all Masher.  We have a commerce section for posting ads, but ads are not allowed until new members meet certain criteria. This is absolutely not to try to exclude a new member that really wants to be part of the Forestry Forum community, but to eliminate ads from sources that only join us for one purpose only. Posting an ad. 

[Tom]

Yeah!  And I've already spent a lot of time on your website looking at bats and blanks and stuff. 
I like it.


When I was a younger boy, back before the turn of the century ;D, my granddaddy would take my brother and me to factories for tours.  One of them was the Hanna Bat Factory in Athens Georgia.  I'll never forget all the baseball bats.   Especially this one finishing stage where a man was standing next to a conveyor with bats hanging from it   He was spraying them with a clear lacquer.

I used a Hanna bat in Little league and had one that allowed me to carry a 400 batting average my last year.   It got cracked and I glued and nailed lit back together and wrapped lit in Electrical friction tape.   I kept that bat for many years but it finally got away from me.  It may be that one of my sons was playing sand lot and used it. :D  I asked and never got an answer but certainly wouldn't chastise a boy for using it.

As I remember, it was pretty heavy, large handled and 32" in length.  Seems that it was a Johnny Mize model but I burned my name onto it too. :D

Welcome to the forum, Dave.

[Ernie]

Anyone know what kind of willow is used in cricket bats?

Ernie

[Ernie]

Tom

Kinda reminds me of my boys practicing driving golf balls down in the paddock with Jan's set of antique wooden shaft golf clubs.  I found the months later when I was mowing the paddock, what a noise as the mower went over them >:( >:( >:(

The boys were not very popular for a few days.

Ernie

[Dan_Shade]

and I felt bad when I left a shovel at my worm bed, and my dad hit it with a bushhog, that leaves nothing on antique golf clubs  ;D

Welcome to the forum Masher, I didn't realize maple was good for bats.

[SwampDonkey]

I thought maple would resonate in your hand and sting with a good crack at the ball. Ouch!!

[Tom]

Ernie,
English Willow must be one of the best secrets in England.  All references to willow are either Basket willow or English willow. 

Finally I found the name of English Willow, the one used for cricket bats.  It is  (salix alba, var. cærulea)  and can be found at this site:

http://salixcricketbats.com/Batmaking.html

Sports paraphanelia always has to have some big special secret to making the "best".   Dave's site has some interesting reading on Baseball bat woods too.

www.mashbats.com

[Ernie]

Tom

Thanks for the link, since everything grows all year round in NZ and we have some very wet land, it may be a good tree to try.

Ernie

[farmerdoug]

Welcome to the Forum, Masher.

You should hear to noise them golf balls make in a combine.  On the land we rent the farmer grew beans last year.  He has a flex head combine where the head rides right on the ground as soybeans will grow their pods right to the ground.  Well the neighbor across the road has decided to use our feild as a driving range but he just leaves the balls as he just buys more.  The farmer was fit to be tied on tha feild for sure.

[Norm]

Welcome aboard Masher.

Seems that clay pidgeons don't go through a combine too well either. :

[old3dogg]

Hard Maple makes great ball bats.Before I left BWP I used to dry around 40000 a year.We also made Soft Maple bats for soft ball and traing.
We tried to get into Red Oak bats but belive it or not RO broke to easily?
Ash,as I hear, is getting harder to use for bats because the trees arent big enough and the grain isnt straight.

I ran a steel shovel through a chipper one time.Boy!Do you ever want to hear a noise!!You should have seen the chipper knives!

[SwampDonkey]

I agree RO wouldn't be much good for a bat. It would break clean. Red oak doesn't even hold up for an axe. There was an old fella who made axe handles and couldn't keep up with my uncle breaking his red oak axe handles.

We used to have a shop here that made bowling pins out of 'rock' sugar maple.

I'de rather have an ash bat, it takes the sting out of the contact with the ball.

[Frank_Pender]

Norm, you just have to keep the header up a bit higher.  8)

[old3dogg]

I used to dry the RO blanks down to around 12% MC.We would then turn the blanks into a bat and then vaccum soak the handle end in every kind of oil you could think of.We wanted the bat to bend at least 2".We were lucky to get 1".
Let me tell you.If we could get the RO bat to bend we could get a least 50 more feet out it! Did hurt your hands!
I broke a lot of bats!

[SwampDonkey]

Since we're talking baseball and bats, here's an interesting read.

Physics of baseball

[SwampDonkey]

old3dogg,

I feel my hands stinging now   

[Quartlow]

I don' t know anything about bats but I can tell you if you drop a 12 pound sledge hammer into a New Holland table blower while filling a silo your going to be replacing 30 feet of pipe.  ;D Never did find the head to that sledge.  :

Welcome aboard Masher

[farmerdoug]

Quartlow,

You didn't do that around the time of that space shuttle crash did you? :D :D :D
I am sure that someday a guy with a metal detector will be wondering how that hammer head got there. 8) 8) 8)

[Tom]

I was wondering what brought that shuttle down.   That sledge hammer head did it, eh?

[pigman]

Quartlow,
If it got the pipe, what did it do to the blower paddles.   I sent a wrench up the pipe of my brother's silo. It didn't hurt the blower or pipe, but it went through the top of the distributer. It didn't make him very happy since he was in the silo topping it out. >:(
Bob the little brother
Back on subject, there is a small company near hear that makes a few bats. H & B; makers of the Louisville Slugger.

[OLD_ JD]

is hickery can be any good for bats??

[Masher]

There are many good woods for bats. Ash has been the main stay for years and I guess with-in the past 8 or 10 years Maple has become a little more popular than Ash, especially with the younger players. Oak was used way back when they used tree limbs and Hickory has been used as well.

Each wood also has it's own benefits.

Ash - good, hard, light and flexible. Good for a player who has a long smooth swing. Carlos Delgado

Maple - good, hard and stiff. Good for a player who has a quick swing and doesn't use the flex of the bat to his advantage. Barry Bonds

Hickory - good, hard but heavy. Seems hard to make bats out of Hickory because they are heavy. Rafeal Palmero

Oak - another good hard wood but very heavy and brittle. The BABE used Oak!!

Dave...