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Creating a Superior Bat
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A
bat being turned on the lathe. |
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A
close-up of the sanding action. |
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Cupping
the bat shifts the center of gravity toward the hitter |
Aside
from using the best grade of maple, which means there's less
waste, Mr. Holman says that the quality of his bats is a result
of not rushing production. The wood is cut into blanks
and dried in one of the large vacuum kilns in the company's
Gatineau, Quebec, production facility. The maple takes four
or five days to dry to a moisture content of seven to nine percent.
The wood is then cut into 3' lengths. Employees choose from
a range of blanks of varied weights, as each model of bat has
a specific density.
The
square blank goes through a rounder, a machine Mr. Holman likens
to a pencil sharpener, which rounds it in about 30 seconds.
Next, one of two lathes is used. A bat can be produced in about
an hour on a production lathe. Professional-model bats are made
on a free-floating lathe. Once the lathe work is complete, the
bat is carefully hand-sanded. During this process, it's weighed
repeatedly to ensure it meets the necessary weight requirements.
A roughly 5 lb blank ends up as a 2 lb baseball bat.
Cupping the bat, removing wood from the barrel, follows. During
this process, employees adjust the final weight of the bat and
balance it, as cupping shifts the bat's center of gravity toward the hitter.
The player's preference determines the degree to which this
is done. The differences may be subtle, but the professional
players notice. In fact, Mr. Holman calls them the most expensive
scales on earth, adding that they "can tell you within
1/16th of an ounce what the bat weighs". |
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