Louisville Slugger Store Model bats-quality of wood?

[brianborsch]

Hello all,

Regarding store model bats of today and even of the past, what quality of wood is it? Is it Pro- Quality? Also, with older store model bats (like the 40TC, 40 BR, 40 CW, etc) was the quality of wood better back in the day for those, compared to the wood used for store models today???

BMH, help please!

[BMH]

I can't tell you what the wood used to be. Today we call the wood we used for store line bats #1's or 3rd grade. #1's is the wood right below XX timber (Pro grade), it's what we usually send to the minor leagues. 3rd grade is as you guess at the bottom of the heap. It is usually turned into your store line models, for most kids the wood is good since they won't be facing a pitch over 70mph.

Today, most of your store line models are made from #1's. We've closed several mills that were producing heavy timber and that also closed our sources for 3rd grade. The greater production of the light XX timber has yielded more #1's which we are putting into our store line production to make up for the loss of 3rd grade.

Personally, I think the quality of wood wasn't any better back in the 40's -70s, just they had more selection. We produce 1.5 million bats a year today. In the mid seventies we were producing 7 million. They had a lot more wood to choose from.

[godwulf]

I watched a fascinating segment yesterday of the show, "How Do They Do That?", filmed at the Rawlings factory. Showed this one older guy doing the grading of the wood, when it had reached the "blank" stage, as I recall, and said that he'd been doing it for forty years. They showed the entire process, from cutting down the trees to stamping the logos. Highly recommended, if you can find it on in your area.

[BMH]

Yeah, I've seen it before, not a bad show.

Here's two vids of LS and SAM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfGFgB3LjsY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyfKApEQwrM&feature=related

[brianborsch]

Can you tell pro-stock bats wood from the grain count? Or from certain patterns in the grain? How do you figure this out?

[BMH]

We grade our wood based on the number and placement of knots, how many grains per inch, the straightness of the grain, whether there is curly wood, discolored areas and other blemishes.

Most your pro bats are going to have 6-16 grains per inch.

[tinkerbell262 @ verizon.net]

bmh how does hillerich and bradsby account for the 28 grain unregistered oak jackie robinson bat found under shipping records on this site?its a thread called hillerich and bradsby oak bats.its a well viewed thread 326 views but nobody responded.theres a picture of the bat on this site that was posted by godzilla as a favor to me.he said ask you.thanks jane

[godwulf]

There's dramatically more "by hand" work shown in the Sam Bat video, as opposed to computer-controlled machine work, which is about all you see in the Louisville Slugger and Rawlings films.

[BMH]

What do you mean "How do we account for it?"

It's an Oak bat...we only count grains on Ash. Oak is something we did a long time ago. To my knowledge there is no one still working for the company who was around during the production of oak bats. I never responded to the thread because I have no information to give you.

You all have to realize our record keeping isn't all that great, we make changes on the fly or do what ever is convenient at the moment. We do a lot of things maybe once or twice then never again. Take for example the 2003 WS. At the last minute we decided to change our center brand on the Maple bats. If I remember correctly it was a Maple leaf and I think "Louisville Slugger" written through it. We pad printed these bats instead of branding. I can't tell you more than that because we never kept a sample of the bats and before the 2004 season we switched to the M9.

At this moment I'm trying to figure out what I made the U36 and U37 off of and who for. I design the bats and the U37 CAD folder says it was created in August of this year, but the order records upstairs say it was Oct. of last year. Most likely my CAD file is right since I can't forge it's creation date, but that doesn't explain the order entry being wrong. Plus, I'm not sure if I made it for Chase Utley or not...too many things going on at once :)

Ah, one more thing, if you guys send me a PM, please have yours set to receive PM's. I can't respond if you won't let me send it;)

[BMH]

There's dramatically more "by hand" work shown in the Sam Bat video, as opposed to computer-controlled machine work, which is about all you see in the Louisville Slugger and Rawlings films.

Yeah, we switched to CNC a few years ago. It's not as fun to watch and you don't get that sense of craftsmanship but I can guarantee a player each of his bats will be within +/- .003in of each other.

[tinkerbell262 @ verizon.net]

thanks bmh what i mean by how do you account for it is its unregistered oak with a hall of fame players name on the barrell.this bat wasnt made for joe slobotnick.somebody may have some knowledge of this considering who robbie was and what he did for baseball.i went to philly park the other day and put 5 dollars to win on the 8 for all races.in the fifth race a horse called cozy fannie paid 103.80 out the 8 box everbody thought i was lucky to hit at 50to1 this oak bat is the first recovered from hb to alot of peoples collective knowledge that makes it one of total prodution of hb bats 300 million to 1.its hard to find oak bats believe me.maybe you could sneak around the vault and dig up information on experimental prototypes hell you found old tom brownings bat in a drawer after 100 years anythings possible.only kidding i love hb there the best.thanks jane

[BMH]

Haha, yeah the Pete Browning bat is funny every time I think about it. We were in the process of trying to buy one at the first Hunt auction held at our factory. Dave Bushing finds the Browning bat in an old file cabinet in our basement! Saved us some money :)

Then again, we have stuff all over Louisville. We have a couple warehouses that haven't been gone through in years.

[tinkerbell262 @ verizon.net]

bmh hey your a pretty good sport.i have nothing but the highest regards for hb.and happy holidays.this thread is about the quality of wood it seams that carpenters furniture makers and others have informed me that oak is higer quality then ash by far not even close that and 28 grains should grant this bat instant authentication as pro stock.pro owned instead i arrive at the ft washington national show bats in hand to let one of the nations leader authenticators give me his opinion.the dates of the show were march 4-5-6 2005.he and his assitant who shall remain nameless they are not part of guu thank god had this to say about the bats first he was flying in late from florida so after waiting 1 hour his assistant said those are indoor bats i said what and he repeated they are indoor bats i asked where and when anyone has ever played indoor baseball he said high schools and colleges i just laughed his boss one of the nations leading authenticators whose name is on alot of high end loas assessed the robinson bat as follows a late 40s model he then looks at the handle sees that its unstamped looks suprised and states ive never seen this centerbrand dhb12 thats the code in place of 125 on the robbie bat and says only twelve made so i say its oak and he says no its white ash stained to look like oak theres no such thing as an oak bat i have all the books from hb i would know this was 2005 any guesses as to who the authenticator is?so to answer this thread yes grain count and quality of wood matter a great deal in identifying pro from store models.just not to authenticators.i feel sorry for you guys in the bat business.thanks for responding jane