Reports

Bruce Wood – Gone Batty

Club Meeting 15 June 2022
Report by Rocky Ralifo

A great demonstration by Bruce on a cold dreary winter night.

Starting with a Matai blank 50mmx60mmx440mm.

  1. Marking the centre first on both ends of the blank using a centre making a indent for steb centres. Choosing the handle end and the top end of the bat
  2. At the top end of the bat mark and punch 2 x 20mm centres offset on either side of the centre hole.
  3. On the same end also mark out 2 x 9mm offset centre holes on either side of the centre hole on the same plane.
  4. Face shield down and running at 2000rpm
  5. Take off the corners of the blank using a spindle roughing gouge. Identify & Mark the dimensions of the ball using a pencil & ruler.
  6. Bruce then centred the blank to the 20mm centre mark. This off centre on the bank at the same time accentuating the ball portion of the bat.
  7. Shaping the handle and head ends of the bat.
  8. Switching to the spindle gouge.
  9. Bruce then moved to the 9mm centre on the head end of the bat. Sneaking up on the back of the ball portion of the bat creating access for the spindle gouge to turn the ball referencing a centre line on the ball portion.
  1. The skilled Bruce then using a spindle gouge started to round the ball portion of the bat into a sphere.
  2. Spraying with ondina oil to reduce dust Bruce at 750rpm sanded the ball portion to desired grit.
  3. Returning the blank to the 20mm centre point on both ends of the piece. Bruce finished turning the bat on either side of the ball portion. Cleaning up these sections using a skew.
  1. Parting the handle portion down to the thickness 30mm followed by tapering the handle portion towards the 30mm thickness.
  2. Finally shaping the handle bead and then rounding off the top end.
  3. Using ondina oil Bruce then sanded the bat portions to the desired grit. 120G>180G>240G>320G. stopping the lathe to sand along the grain of the piece if there are deep scratch marks from the previous grit.
  4. Parting the ends of the piece to thin nibs, taking the piece off the lathe and sawing off the nibs followed by sanding.

This completed the demo.

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