Has anyone turned an 8' long baseball bat?

[Dennis Nagle]

I would like to turn a very long bat 6' maybe 8' long has anybody done that and any tricks you can tell me about.

[Reed Gray]

I have seen some that were done for keepsakes. Other than that, the common type fish whacker worked. I haven't done any myself, but it would be spindle turning 101. I would have the handle end at the tailstock.

robo hippy

[Sparky Paessler]

I saw once where someone was turning a small sailboat mast maybe 20' or so. They took the tail rest off the lathe and clamped it to a table across the shop and rigged up a freestanding toolrest (like for outboard turning) to turn turn the part that wasn't over the lathe bed. I thought that was pretty smart idea for doing a one time long turning. I'm sure you would have to be fairly careful doing it though. You could probably even rig up a wood section of lathe bed to put the tail rest on.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

When I was a youngun in the 1960's. My father took me a few times to a wood shop where the old Mennonite or Amish fellow turned baseball bats and wooden porch columns. IIRC his lathe could be about 12 ft long including a wooden bed extension. It was pretty much just an extended piece of whatever wood that would be set up on a sturdy frame that could be fastened to the floor somehow. Many of the porch columns were just narrow, perhaps out of 6 x 6 timbers, but some were quite a bit larger. sort of segmented from long planks and turned to tapering rounds about 12 or 14 inches round at the base. A few were hollow We only stopped there a half dozen times or so. I have seen several old lathes made to be mounted to wooden beds or metal I-beams. It would seem sort of simple to make an extension of get an extra long piece tp use for a temporary extension.

[Grant Wilkinson]

We've actually done a few for promotions in the shop where I work part time. The only tip that I can give you it so use at least one steady and more if you can.

[Mark Greenbaum]

I have turned a set of 4 - 6 foot long bed posts on a 42" long bed (customer built a wooden extension made of Advantech and red oak. It's still on my lathe as a ready to use reference desk. The posts were 5" square red oak laminations, and turned to 4" round cylinders with tapers at each end to 3" x 15" long. No steady rest, and almost all roughing gouge and skew work

[Reed Gray]

Oops! Coffee hadn't kicked in yet, I read it is 8 inches rather than 8 feet....... Doh!!!

robo hippy

[roger wiegand]

Steroid abuse has gone way overboard if we need to start making bats that big!

One of the advantages of my old Conover lathe is that I can make the bed any length required. That made 6' bedposts easy. A bat should be pretty straightforward because there aren't any real thin spots that will cause wobble as you turn.

When we lived in St. Louis once or twice a year a trailer from the Hillerich & Bradsby Co. would show up at Busch stadium and demo bat turning by hand. As I recall the guy had a big powermatic lathe and went from blank to finished bat in about 45 seconds using only a skew. It was fun to watch.