will these bubbles go away in the poly when it drys?
Finished and ready to hit some dingers.
Started by laminating a blank. For this one I used white ash with a hickory core. Hickory is an awesome wood for bats but too dense to make modern bat weights from so I’m using a layer of it to give the bat a little extra oomph.
I take a piece of scrap wood and put guide marks on it for laying out the dimensions so I can easily transfer them back to the blank as I work.
Starting to rough out the shape. I work in sections before blending them together.
Put the steady rest on as I’m thinning out the handle section. It isn’t a necessity but it lets me stay aggressive with my cuts without worrying about it bouncing too much.
Sanding the rough profile to smooth everything out. Then I use a piece of cow femur to “bone the bat”. It compresses the fibers to make it harder.
I’ve been experimenting with calligraphy ink on certain woods. It does a nice job on ash of adding color while preserving the appearance of the grain. I hit it with a quick swipe of ebonizing fluid after just to pop the grain even more.
Handle finished it’s time to apply graphics.
I’m heat transferring a laser print onto the wood. You just print your graphic in reverse and apply heat to it to lift the toner from the paper and bond it to the wood. It’s remarkably durable once you finish.
Label up will put the hickory edge on to the ball.
Finally I finish it with a couple of coats of linseed oil. Commercial bats today typically use poly or lacquer finish but I’m old school.
Lift table for CMT router
I have a CMT router table with a CMT 2E router. It is not a lift table, so I use a car jack to raise and lower it, however this is not accurate and a bit of a faff.
I would like to either fit a lift table, or convert the current one. Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas on how to do this, and with which kit? My searching only reveals 65mm router lift kits, or things for several hundred dollars and this is supposed to be a hobby :)
Right now, because changing cutters takes so long and the adjusting is poor it tends to be used to rest coffee cups on.