make your own baseball bat

To perform this, you need to have the following required materials. You need wood that measures approximately 4″ in diameter by 37″ long, a wood lathe, bucking tool, roughing gouge, gouge spindle, sandpaper, measuring calipers, wood burning tool, varnish and finishing wax. To begin a project of making a custom wood bat, one requires spending time finding the essential woodturning tools needed to get the job done.

The manufacture of a baseball bat requires that established industry standards governing the production and subsequent use of the product be followed. For example, the International Baseball Softball Federation has established the minimum requirements that any bat must meet. To begin the entire process of turning a baseball bat, you need to have blanks that can be turned and still manage to get to a 3-inch diameter, especially on the barrel.

Having met this minimum requirement, you should now place your piece of wood on the wood lathe and begin the process of obtaining a raw wood bat. Now it’s time to calibrate the bat blank in 4″ length intervals. You need to be careful in the wood turning process, have your face mask in place and where needed where your shop gloves. Now you need to do your blank bat Carefully use the roughing gouge to make the bat round.

Turning, sanding and finishing

Here, your starting point should be the barrel. Keeping bat standards in mind, make sure your bat’s target diameter meets your diameter requirements. The bucking tool is useful to help you make this diameter cut. It is important to note that in order for you to figure out the diameter you want, you need to re-measure it with a caliper as you turn. You can use the roughing gouge to excavate the surface until you achieve the required size of the bottom of the groove. Having done that, you need to measure and calibrate the handle of the bat. Use the roughing gouge to remove all unnecessary materials on the handle. Be careful not to make the handle too skinny or too big. Make sure you get the desired shank diameter.

The other important feature of this bat is the knob. To get the correct knob distance from the barrel of the bat, measure the length of the bat, as far as you want the handle to go. Then use a bias to mark this point as the starting point for the bat knob. Usually the diameter of the knob is about 2″. Here, you need to use a skew chisel to round out the knob.

With most of the work done, now it’s time to make the bat more attractive. To do this, you need to use sandpaper to make it smooth. The cardinal rule of thumb in sanding is that when sanding, you should start with 50 or 60 grit sandpaper, while gradually increasing the grits up to 220 or higher.

Apply finish while lathe is still running; use a damp cloth so that the finish is on the bat and not on you. Here you can apply Vanish in two coats and then allow the bat to dry before removing it from the lathe. After drying, you need to separate the bat from the lathe. At both ends, make a visible mark or grove using a parting tool. Cut the tendons from both ends and then wax the exposed areas after cutting the tendons. You now have your custom wood bat thanks to tools purchased through the http://www.yourwoodturningtools.com website.