Need to cut down a wooden baseball bat to turn it into a practise bat (i.e. make it thinner, so more difficult to hit accurately with).
Its 28" (710mm) long and 2.2" (56mm) in diameter at the wide end. Would like to turn it down at the wide end to about 40mm.
Might there be anyway to do this reasonably well without the use of a lathe? (which we don't have).
Alternatively might there be a woodworking hobbyist in the North London Area with a lathe who might be able to help out? Grateful for any advice. Thanks.
Requires a fair bit of skill, but could be done with a drawknife and handplane. Alternatively power plane, and lots of sandpaper (use the stuff on a long roll, mount the bat in the vice, end of a long strip in each hand and draw the strip back and forth.
Have a google on "sparmaking". As oars/spars/masts are too long to be turned (and often need a precise taper), other traditional techniques have been developed
Yeah,,,, He wants to make the bat smaller compared to the ball being hit. A smaller ball would make the bat even larger to the ball. Using a larger ball would make the bat seem smaller to the ball.
The OP wants the ball to be "more" difficult to hit "accurately", not just more difficult to hit.
A lathe is really the only practical way to do this easily.
Try contacting this lot
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will possibly have them fighting over who does it although the length will mean the perpetual pen turners and bowl boys possibly won't be able to cope.
I suggest going another route. They already make practice bats and they are pretty cheap. If you can't find them in your area, go old school and use broom/rake handles or metal conduit. All of this is a moot point if you're using baseballs, because they will bend/break after ten hits... but then again, so will the bat you are turning down.
All this to say, I hope you are using tennis balls or racket balls rather than baseballs. :-)
Rather than turning down the bat what about cutting off the handle, drill out the center of the handle and glue in an approximate size dowel. (Our just use the dowel for the bat).
Make a box long enough for the bat to fit into leave the top (a long side) open. Drive nails or screws in the center of each end. Center the bat in the box. Make a platform that your router will fit onto useing a straight bit lower to the bat you should have enough room to rotate the bat by hand move the router for each pass. Just my thoughts
'Ol Norm did that one for the 3 legged table. He did a turning on the lathe, then built a box right there on the lathe for the router to ride on and put some dovetailed slots in the end of the blank for legs for a small table. Maybe the "Candlestick Table"? Actually, I don't think I'd turn down a bat ~too~ much and whack it with a normal size baseball. Might poke an eye out.
Sounds like a Little League coach. Been there. Started with TBall, my boy now plays college ball. First, doing that would void the certification of the bat and create a safety problem. If anything, you want a smaller ball, not a smaller bat. You have to watch it more closely. One company puts out a metal rod about 3/4" and balls the size of ping-pong balls. A very slightly >heavier< bat may help. Changing dimensions of the practice bat makes hitting with a normal bat harder. Lots of 'soft toss' drill is a better idea, stretching, exercise to develop wrist strength, and attention to mechanics. Try reading
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. Or I'm way off base - he might be making a flower vase.
Need to cut down a wooden baseball bat to turn it into a practise bat (i.e. make it thinner, so more difficult to hit accurately with). Its 28" (710mm) long and 2.2" (56mm) in diameter at the wide end. Would like to turn it down at the wide end to about 40mm. Might there be anyway to do this reasonably well without the use of a lathe? (which we don't have). Alternatively might there be a woodworking hobbyist in the North London Area with a lathe who might be able to help out? Grateful for any advice. Thanks.
So you want to thin out a baseball bat for training, which will also make it lighter. Then, after the training is complete, you'll play baseball with a bat that is larger in diameter and also heavier? Sounds like a plan. Do you ever notice that the on-deck batter puts weights on the bat and takes practice swings with that heavier bat before he steps into the batter's box?
On 7/27/11 10:12 AM, willshak wrote: > So you want to thin out a baseball bat for training, which will also > make it lighter. Then, after the training is complete, you'll play > baseball with a bat that is larger in diameter and also heavier?
It won't be lighter. The composite bats used today are mush lighter than wood.
That's yet another tradition in baseball that's stood the test of time, but not the test of science. Scientific studies have shown that a heavier bat messes up your timing and a batter who uses the same bat in the on-deck circle gets better results.
Here's another. Corked bats don't hit as far as un-corked bats. And another, sliding into first base is a lot slower than running through. There are a bunch of these.
However, you will never convince the baseball player of this, because his two strongest and most convincing training tools for baseball are ritual and superstition. Players have been hogtied by these two for as long as the game has been played. You'll never convince the fan of this because they say, "Well, they've been doing it as long as I can remember and they're the ones playing professional baseball so they must know wheat they're doing."
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