Breakage-resistant baseball bat and production thereof
OwnerJoseph D. Mitchellinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A baseball bat which meets Major League specifications is fabricated from porous red oak wood. The pores of the handle portion of the bat contain an impregnation oil. The resultant bat provides greater ball-hitting power while having greater resistance to breakage. The process for producing the bat involves slow and uniform drying of individual hardwood billets under conditions which provide non-warped dry billets having 4%-8% H2O. The dry billet is then shaped to the bat configuration and impregnated with a penetrating oil while standing upright in a vacuum/pressure chamber.
Claims13
A baseball bat fabricated of a monolithic piece of porous red oak wood and comprised of a handle portion terminating at a first or lower end in an integral knob, an outwardly tapered intermediate portion extending from said handle portion, and a ball hitting barrel portion merging with said intermediate portion and terminating in a second or upper end, said bat containing an impregnated oil extending from said lower end through said handle portion, and an oil-impervious coating covering the entire bat.
A process for making a baseball bat of a porous hardwood conforming to Major League specifications comprising:
- a) drying a billet of a porous hardwood sufficiently slowly and evenly so as to produce a non-warped dry billet having a moisture content in the range of 4%-8% H2O,
- b) shaping the billet to the form of the desired baseball bat, having a handle portion terminating at a first extremity in an integral knob, an outwardly tapered intermediate portion extending from said handle portion, and a ball hitting barrel portion merging with said intermediate portion and terminating in an upper end,
- c) placing said bat upright in a chamber which achieves impregnation of said bat to a height of between about 18 and 22 inches with a penetrating oil,
- d) removing said bat from said chamber and removing excess penetrating oil, and
- e) applying to said bat a coating of a film-forming agent compatible with said oil.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.