Wood construction is the hallmark of classic baseball bats. And despite the availability of many other materials such as aluminum and alloy, wood bats continue to be the primary choice of top league players. You can make a wooden bat at your home with a set of standard tools. Before you do so, you must choose between the many different types of wood used in wooden bats.
Ash, Maple or Birch?
Typically, three most common types of wood used in creating wooden bats are ash, maple and birch. Of course your first concern should be to see which of these types of wood are easily available to you. Try to get your hands on ash or maple wood if you can. That’s because ash has been used to make baseball bats since the early days of the game and bats made from ash carry a large sweet spot and solid barrel. Another advantage of ash wood is that it’s
incredibly light-weight.
Maple is the next best choice, being a very strong variety of wood. Bats made from maple carry a very responsive barrel and are quite durable. Birch is a good choice only if maple or ash are not available.
Now let’s get down to brass-tacks. Before you start making a baseball bat, here are the things you need to have in your inventory.
Make a Baseball Bat
Get this stuff
- A piece of wood 36” long and at least 3” x 3” in dimensions
- A smooth wood lathe
- Table saw
- A caliper and a ruler for measurements
- A pencil and a paper for markings
- Roughing and spindle gouges
Step 1: Shaping up the wood
First, make sure that the piece of wood from which you intend to carve the bat is absolutely dry. If it isn’t dry, leave it in a heated place for up to a month. Once it is completely dry, carry it to your workshop and measure it to 36” in length. Smooth both ends of the wood so that they are flat. On the bottom of the wood, mark a large cross from the four corners. Then puncture a hole in the wood at the mid-point of this cross. Before you haul it up on the lathe, use the table saw to chop off the corners of the lumber at 45 degrees.
Step 2: Lathe action
Now that the piece is fairly sized and positioned on the lathe, get it rotating at an initial pace of 600 rpm. Use a roughing gouge to smooth out the wood until it is left with a 2” thickness. At this point, refine the gouging process and tune up the lathe to 200 rpm.
Step 3: Laying out the design of the bat
Now that you have a fairly smooth and rounded version of the wood, mark out the bat every 3” of the total length. Make the barrel out to be 12” and also mark the handle on the bat.
Step 4: Slimming down the bat
Use a parting tool, possibly a spindle gouge, to carve into the wood of the bat up to a depth that is suitable. If you have a sample bat, follow its dimensions. For example, measure the barrel of the bat, then add 1/16 of an inch to this measurement. Now using spindle gouge, carve a channel down to this measurement on the bat you are making.
Step 5: Bringing out the final shape
Now is the time to scrape and carve out the final shape of the bat. For this purpose, use a parting chisel and gradually slim down on the bat to the depth as measured in Step 4. If you are a perfectionist, better use a nose scraper to do a better job in scraping the bat.
Step 6: Sanding the bat
At this stage, the shape of your bat is ready and now you need to refine and polish it. First, you will need to use a sanding paper to smooth out the bat’s surface. If the final surface of the bat is rough, use a coarser sand paper, such as an 80 grit sandpaper. If it is smoother and more close to what you desire, you can rather opt for a 100 grit sandpaper.
Step 7: Varnishing the bat
You have the finalized bat in your hands now. The final thing to do is polish out the rough outlook of the surface. An easy way to do this is to apply some varnish on a piece of cloth and while the bat is rotating on the lathe, apply the cloth to it so that the bat is uniformly varnished.
Step 8: The extras
There are many extra things you can do a baseball bat you have made. You can etch out a name or a logo on it, which is better done with a laser cutter. You can shape the knob into a shape of your choice. These are the things that are concerned with the outlook of the bat and do not affect the bat’s performance.
