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Baseball Bat Billets
Question
Forum Responses
You could start turning your own. Louisville Slugger has only one employee who can turn bats by hand. He's been there for 40 years. I believe the small shops do CNC and hand turning.
From Professor Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor: In order to reduce the chance of breakage of a bat, it is critical to saw parallel to the grain. This means straight logs, no twisted or spiral grain, and sawing parallel to the bark. In fact, if you split a log in half, you will find out exactly the angle of the grain and can saw parallel for the best bat material. Ash is still popular, but hard maple is also going strong and breaks more easily, as the grain is seldom perfectly straight. In any case, I have worked with several bat manufacturers and they do have plenty of wood. Therefore, you might find it hard to break into this market, as mentioned in the above posting.
From contributor P: Right, doc. I see maple bats shattering a lot more than ash. I try to look at the growth rings when the batter gets up to see which species he is using. Painted bats are impossible, of course. I remember about 30 to 40 years ago that people in my area of central NY would make wedge shaped "splits" out of white ash for the bat market. These were green lumber and I don't know how they were dried. There were a couple of small shops that would then turn them into the finished product. I don't know if they retailed them or were a job market for a larger producer such as Adirondack Bat in Dolgeville, NY, which by the way, Hank Aaron used. I don't know if they are still in business.
From Professor Gene Wengert, forum technical advisor: The key to avoiding breaking bats is to have the grain parallel to the length. The grain is often determined by splitting, as a split will follow the grain. With hard maple (hard maple seems to give the baseball better bounce off the bat), the grain varies every couple of inches, so it is impossible to get the length parallel to the grain. It takes only a few degrees of angle for the bat to weaken significantly. From contributor D: Things may have changed but Larimer-Norton used to dry all the ash for Louisville Slugger. They split all the billets by hand. The billets are/were dried by blowing air gently into the end of the charge since the sides of the charge were so irregular. From contributor P: Thanks. I wondered how the drying was accomplished. Also I am pretty sure that the players are willing to put up with shattered bat if the "liveliness" of the maple helps them. I wonder how many fans have been injured by the shards of wood. Would you like to add information to this article? Interested in writing or submitting an article? Have a question about this article? Have you reviewed the related Knowledge Base areas below? 
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