Baseball lamp

[TimD]

I' working on a new project - a turned 48" baseball bat that's going to be made into a floor lamp. The base is 3 decreasing discs of wood laminated together with the center one being cut out on the inside and filled with lead shot for stability. The top disc has a 2" hole cut through it for a 2" tenon on the end of the bat to fit into. The bat's handle knob will be tenoned onto the bat as well.
A will be drilled and set on top of the bat then the harp and shade attached. Several inches up from the floor will be a small circular shelf slid down over the bat and attached. The bat will be displayed big end down.
The bat, base and shelf is Austrian pine that I'm staining with walnut stain and the bat handle knob is bloodwood. When finished I'll post a pic of it here.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Now that sounds like an interesting project. Definitely post some pictures when done. At one time I had seen some small desk lamps with a theme like that and always had this in the back of my mind if I ever got a lathe. But the guy used bats he bought and did not make them himself. I can see a baseball in here somewhere wether it is turned and applied to the sweet spot of the bat or placed on the shelf. Add a clock face to it and you embellished the project further. On the lamp shade add some of those plastic baseballs you can get in craft stores that are cut in half. Oh boy I better stop my brain is overloading when I start thinking like that.

[pops-shop]

Gotta see this one when finished. Super interesting on how it's going together.

[TimD]

In my first post on this I left out a word, "A will be". My fingers missed what my brain was thinking, "A baseball will be". I'm going to drill a hole through the center of a baseball or a softball and slide it down over the rod and let it rest on top of the bat's handle.
I have the wood ripped and all glued together for the bat now and letting it cure overnight with the clamps on it. If the weather isn't too bad I hope to stick a gouge to the bat tomorrow. Oh boy, I can't hardly wait! Naturally everyone that I've mentioned it to here wants to know where I'll find a lathe that big, that I already have. Then the next question is where will I find a drill bit that long, that's easy enough too. Before I stick the gouge to her I'll make a pic or 2 and then a few as I'm working with the project. The main thing that I'm still undecided about is how much to charge for such a thing. I know that some floor lamps sell for around $125.00 to well over $600. Those are just ordinary old store models.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Tim

What type of lathe do you have?? Are you going to have to use some sort of steady rest to support the length??? You should put a label on there with your name as an advertising thing and a way of signing it. That would be a good project for the mighty skew chisel. You mention Austrian Pine as wood of choice. Just curious to as why?? I have never seen this wood to my knowledge. Could you take a picture and post?? Is it as soft as yellow pine or sugar pine,or ponderosa pine??

[K&MScrollworks]

Tim sounds great and sure hope you keep us posted to your progress and of course final pictures.

[TimD]

The Austrian pine is a white pine that looks a lot like our spruce pine but it is quite knotty and turns much harder than spruce pine does. My reason for choice wa that a couple of nice straight 1x12's were left ovver from a remodeling job that a friend did. He let me have the things for a thank you. Boy did I get the worst end of that deal.
I could never get a skew to work as it would constantly hit a knot and kick bak. The gouges weren't much better as the wood wouldn't allow me take a good bite into the wood. Almost the entire bat was more scraped down until of turned down. The wood is very stringy and that was another problem because it would pull strings working either with or against the grain.
I do have the top piece of the 3 pc base cut out and the shelf that goes down over the bat to the shoulder that I cut about 19" from the bottom. This dtuff don't even cut well with a scroll saw, jig saw or table saw with a brand new carbide tipped teflon coated blade.
Rest assured that the next one that I turn will not be pine that came from Austria. If any of you guys have turned much Shedua wood from Africa that would be a quicker wood to work with than this stuff.

[TimD]

I've finally got the base sections assembled with the center one with lead in it for bottom weight. The bat is assembled with the knob on it and the bat is on the base, the wire is run up through the bat and out the brass threaded tube. Still to go tomorrow will be attaching the softball then filling in around the tube with either a turned hollowed out turning or threaded brass screw on turnings. Then the lamp fixture, harp and shade. Still got some staining to do as well.
Total time so far is about 24 hours and most of that is turning the bat and the knob. This has been the most time consuming thing that I've attempted in some time. This goes to show that all woods aren't equal.