Thread: Cricket Bat - Jnr Size (WIP)

I often find it difficult to answer when people ask what I make when I tell them I am into woodworking - this is perhaps just another example of making what I feel like.

As a kid growing up my best mate and I would make a variety of mini cricket bats, spending about an hour max, before heading off to the nets to try them out. Some were traditional and others were outrageously thick to get some more power. When the word came home from day care that Santa needed a gift for the Christmas party, I thought that with the Ashes in full swing it would be a good opportunity to give Santa a break and head out to the shed to make my little boy his first cricket bat.

As I now have an old camera permanently based in the shed I thought I would take some progress shots.

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Step 1 - After determining the rough size some old packing crate timber was glued up. I perhaps went a little overboard with the material for the handle.

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Step 2 - Turners may wish to avert their eyes as I hack my way through the timber to create the handle.

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Step 3 - Time to do a little shaping on the back to reduce the weight. I tried the jointer and tablesaw but in the end it was easiest just using a hand plane.

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Step 4 - After a little time shaping the little man awoke from his lunchtime sleep and came down to check what dad was up to (despite still being a little sleepy and missing his safety boots). This provided a good opportunity to check the size which was fortunate as it was a little big. As he was now awake it also called an end to shed time for the day.

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Step 5 - A little more refinement with the help of the bandsaw and disk sander. The roof top profile is starting to take shape.

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Step 6 - Back on the lathe to run some string around the handle to soften the blow of hitting ...... well I was going to say ball but I have a feeling this bat will be hitting anything in sight for a while. The lathe was only turned by hand for this stage.

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Step 7 - I thought that it would be best to give the bat a logo, an abstract "E" for Edward - lucky he wasn't called Sam. After laying out the shape with some scrap timber I scored the timber as I wanted to use some Ubeaut water dye and I thought the score lines may help control any bleed. Unfortunately the timber was fairly opened grained, and I was running a fever on the day and a drop of perspiration caused the dye to run out of control more than I cared to try and clean up. In the end I used a card scraper to remove it all and resorted to paint.

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Step 8 - A couple of coats of WOP and the a quick buff of Ubeaut natural wax for the finish. The date was stamped on the bottom for future reference. Black tape was also applied to the handle.

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Step 9 - I needed to convince Little Stink to drop the sword that I gave him earlier in the day (and the screw in the other hand) so he could test the bat out for size. He seemed happy so far. As a side note the shed still isn't fully set up after recently lining the walls and ceiling so there is stuff everywhere. I do keep a very close eye on the Little Stink if he is out there with me as it is typically only for a few minutes when he is telling me its time to come inside.

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Step 10 - So that's it. I can't say I am 100% happy but it will do well enough for now. Looking back I should have gone for a lighter timber to give a better match to Willow. Its a little hard to pick up the profile from the photos however I am happy enough with that given the smaller than average size. It just needs to be wrapped so Santa can give it out on Friday at the Christmas picnic.

So that is that little project completed. The small bats are fun to make and should only take an hour or so to complete. I am looking forward to making the next one with Little Stink.

Cheers

Stinky.