How Do You Make Metal Baseball Bats?
For a baseball player, there’s a certain and familiar satisfaction that comes when bat meets ball, an exhilaration that can’t be replicated by another sensation. But few hitters get to feel the bat in its original form, as a basic aluminum tube, before it is shaped and molded. The process by which aluminum bats are created is highly scientific, but from start to finish the quest remains the same: To provide sluggers their implement of choice. Slide the aluminum tube over a tapered mandrel, and use hydraulic pressure to force the tube through a die, creating a situation in which the outside diameter is steady but the inside diameter of the tube varies. Place the tube between two opposing dies, according to Eric Lundin of TheFabricator.com, and rotate the tube at 850 revolutions per minute, performing 5,100 impacts per minute in order reduce the bat’s diameter. Proceed through the dies until the desired handle size is reached. Heat the metal to 900 degrees and hold for 20 minutes until t
