helical plywood

[Cooler]

Just imagining aloud now.

Baseball bats were made from ash wood for most of my life; lately they have been made from maple more often.  College ball used aluminum bats.

One of the problems faced with baseball bats is that the wood was inconsistent from one blank to the next, and a bad blank could crack on impact with a ball.

So I am wondering if a helical plywood would be a better choice.  

It would start with a small dowel (3/8" or 1/2") and the thin veneer would be wrapped around that in a continuous helix until it was large enough to turn a baseball bat.  


Would this be stronger?  Would this be more consistent than a solid blank?

Just thinking aloud here.  And the plywood wrappings could be made to semi-contour the bat so less material would be removed in the turning process.

[Redman]

Looks like a patent application has already been submitted.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050124441

[Cooler]

Looks like a patent application has already been submitted.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050124441

The status is listed as "abandoned".  I wonder why.

[Redman]

Looks like abandoned in 2004 and resubmitted in 2005. Anyway lots to read there and I didn't read it all just scanned it. Looks like other similar ideas before and after this one.

[Stwood_]

Seems the bat would be more flexible

[Scoony]

If you ever get in the Louisville, KY area, take a tour of the Hillerich & Bradsby Baseball Bat factory in downtown. They are better known for making the Louisville Slugger. Just about every MLB player has a custom profile and the Factory is able to replicate those profiles and weights consistently. If someone started making them from laminated blanks, it would take a long time for them to catch on as it would change the weight of a particular profile.

Really good tour, and the best part is the batter's cage at the back. Swinging to balls launched at 90 mph is no joke.

[MichaelMouse]

If you ever get in the Louisville, KY area, take a tour of the Hillerich & Bradsby Baseball Bat factory in downtown. They are better known for making the Louisville Slugger. Just about every MLB player has a custom profile and the Factory is able to replicate those profiles and weights consistently. If someone started making them from laminated blanks, it would take a long time for them to catch on as it would change the weight of a particular profile.

Really good tour, and the best part is the batter's cage at the back. Swinging to balls launched at 90 mph is no joke.

Of course, you remember as a kid - before aluminum bats - to look at the label, so you were hitting on the quarter grain, right?  Effectively the same as laminating, only done by mother nature.

More important than process would be certification for play.

[Cecil]

If you ever get in the Louisville, KY area, take a tour of the Hillerich & Bradsby Baseball Bat factory in downtown. They are better known for making the Louisville Slugger. Just about every MLB player has a custom profile and the Factory is able to replicate those profiles and weights consistently. If someone started making them from laminated blanks, it would take a long time for them to catch on as it would change the weight of a particular profile.

Really good tour, and the best part is the batter's cage at the back. Swinging to balls launched at 90 mph is no joke.

The blanks are milled not far from me, in Warren County, PA.  I have a couple of friends that work their.  My work bench legs are baseball bat blank rejects, from back when they milled them square.  Now they just use a long hole saw.

[Paul K. Murphy]

Well, with wooden bats players like to hit the ball with the edges of the growth rings. Your helical, wrapped design wouldn’t have that quality. I suppose that even if the idea had some virtues, players would complain that the bats didn’t have enough pop.

[Alan S]

If rotary cut veneer were used, winding it spirally would be in effect gluing it back in the same grain orientation as it was, with the attendant problems of including the pith in the middle of the bat. That is never done for good reason: it is likely to crack even if you don't use it.