Some of you might remember this post (here) where I made my
own bats to throw on. I was pretty happy
with them for a while, but I started to notice some things about them that
bothered me. One big one was that the
bat pins (the little nubs that hold the bat in place) stuck up about an eighth
of an inch. I know that doesn’t seem
like much but when your hands are pressed down on a spinning bat it gets pretty
irritating, it also stop you from cutting off larger objects like plates,
bowls, and platters smoothly. I thought
I could deal with it; I have a few other bats that I could throw those types of
things on so I kept using them. The
second thing that bothered me was that they are made of masonite, which is basically
like compressed cardboard. So when they
get wet they tend to swell a little, and then when they dry they warp a
little. I was okay with this, again for
a while but when you’re ready to throw and flipping through your bats and
cannot find a flat one it gets pretty annoying.
This happened to me the other day, so I thought I would try to flatten
all of my masonite bats at once, prompt like.
I soaked them in water to get them nice and pliable, and then stacked a
couple of five gallon buckets full of water on top of them to get them nice and
compressed, and left them for a day or two to dry.
 |
| The all important close-up. |
So now I’m thinking that my problems are solved (well one of
them) and my bats will be flat and ready to use when I want. I take my seat at the wheel and reach for a bat,
and the first one I pick up is warped far worse than any I have yet seen. Luckily it’s just that one, and the next one
is pretty flat.
Now it’s been a few more days and my bats are starting to
warp again. I’m thinking it’s time to
invest in some of the higher end plastic bats that never warp, just to save
myself the grief that I inflicted upon myself when I decided to make my own
bats.
Maybe next time I will use a treated/sealed, and thicker plywood….
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