Son's Mini-Bat

[Grizz]

My 14 year old who has been turning pens for a couple years had an interesting class yesterday. The teacher brought in a Wood Bat and the discussion/questions started going toward how is a bat made?

Josh tended to have his hand up most of the time and was the only one who knew what the machine was called that makes them. He thinks the teacher was a little perplexed how he knew so much. First, he loves baseball and has been wanting to make his own bat (I only have a Rikon Midi, no extension). Two, he's being working a lathe for a couple years.

I told Josh I had some Hickory and the lathe is up... just not much else. "You wanna make him a mini-bat?", sure! So I cut off a blank of Hickory for him and he went at it. Now he's probably not even turned a pen for about 6 months. So, I was curious how it would go. He just Eye-Balled it as he went. 1 roughing gouge and 1 Lancer style skew and he came up with this.

He signed it to his teacher as a gift. (Oh, and Josh gets the be the first one with a finished project in the new shop.)

 

[jttheclockman]

That is some sweet spot on that one. Tell him nice work and thanks for showing.

 

[CSue]

What a beauty! Great job on that bat! What a great treasure.

 

[bgibb42]

That makes for a great gift that I'm sure his teacher will enjoy for a long time. Good looking bat!

 

[JimB]

I bet his teacher will be very impressed.

 

[maxman400]

Nice Work!

 

[Rfturner]

mini bat

another thing that you can do is put an eye hook at one end then it can be put on a key ring. When I was in Highschool my shop teacher taught us that one. I made a few but I was not all that into them, mainly because I did not know that many people that were that into baseball. The bat came out looking great your son has a good eye for replicating.

 

[glycerine]

Now that's cool...

 

[Russell Eaton]

A++++ for shop grade this year... LOL. Good way to break in the new shop.

 

[Grizz]

Thanks everyone, told Josh of the comments. He's smiled really big.