Cleaning and Conditioning Old Bats

[John V]

If you are trying to repair some severe separation, you may want to try this:

Obtain a piece of flexible, sturdy material big enough to not quite wrap around the barrel of the bat. I used a flexible plastic 3-ring notebook cover.

Obtain about 6 screw-down radiator hose clamps.

Smear Elmer's wood glue between the grains. Don't overdo the glue.

After inserting glue, wrap with rigid material and clamps. Each clamp can be about an inch or so apart. Tighten clamps evenly and immediately wipe the excess glue away that squishes out. Don't overtighten. A word of caution, the wrap must be rigid enough to apply even pressure along the length of the barrel. Clamping too tight or using clamps without the rigid material could leave you with clamp marks or indentations in the wood. Be patient. Keep the clamps on for 24 hours.

To avoid dealing with removal of hardened glue, wipe the bat grain with a moist sponge after clamping. Be careful here or you'll have residue that may need more work or require sanding! Don't glue in an area under the wrap, since you can't wipe away the excess.

If you are really patient, glue just a couple grains at a time. Position your wrap so you can easily wipe away the excess glue. Again, the more glue you wipe away, the more trouble-free the finished product will be.

I've used this technique on a few bats. Results varied based on my patience and the amount of glue I failed to wipe away.

[Runscott]

Thanks John. Unfortunately, mine is much more severe. Other than some dryness, the rest of the bat is very nice.

[ruth-gehrig]

So is restoring bats acceptable to most bat collectors. I like things original myself but admit cleaned up they do look really nice. I can see both sides. Do restored or even cleaned bats sell for comparable prices to original untouched ones??

[MGHPro]

Yes, restored and cleaned up bats are both acceptable. What you want to avoid doing is taking a professional game used bat and removing the ball marks, rack marks, pine tar etc but having deadwood, chips and cracks repaired is acceptable and wont hurt the value.

As far as cleaning store model bats, a clean one will sell for more than a cruddy one.

[MGHPro]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Thanks John. Unfortunately, mine is much more severe. Other than some dryness, the rest of the bat is very nice.

Scott- that looks like maybe a little fire damage too. You probably won't have much luck gluing the gaps. I would sand it down, stain it and then try to color patch some wood filler.
Matt

[autograf]

I don't have a dog in the fight cause I don't collect bats too much any more but if you have a valuable bat and need some work done on it, you won't find anyone better than Bill Rayburn who has posted here and probably not many finer people too.....

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by MGHPro

Scott- that looks like maybe a little fire damage too. You probably won't have much luck gluing the gaps. I would sand it down, stain it and then try to color patch some wood filler.
Matt

Yep, that's what I was told (fire damage) the last time I posted it here. For $100, I looked at it as a fun project. I've been researching label characteristics and collecting period Cobb decal images. Looking forward to doing the paint job. I'm ready to go, but in no hurry.

I like your idea. I have mixed colored wood fillers before to fill in colored veneer gaps in pool cues, with good results.