manufacturing

Cricket bats are made from 2 main raw materials, English willow and Sarawak cane.

Cricket Bat Willow

The species of English willow used is Salix Alba Caerulea with the literal meaning White Willow. This is the only willow species used because of its strength and lightness.

Cricket bat willow trees are grown throughout the UK and generally a tree is a minimum of 15 years old before felling and has a minimum girth of 1.4 metres (56 inches). The trees are then sawn into rounds of 70 centimetre (28 inch) lengths and naturally split into clefts before they are seasoned naturally or by kiln assisted driers.

By the time a cleft is ready to manufacture it is around 4 - 4½ lb in weight and down to 10-12% moisture content. Any less moisture makes the cleft lighter, but extremely brittle. Clefts are graded on their straightness of grain, numbers of grains, colouration and any blemishes such as knots and stains.

The best clefts have straight even grains with no blemishes and no colouration. Generally a narrow grained bat is from an older tree and is more brittle and a wider grain is from a younger tree and is softer.

The optimum piece of wood will have 8-10 grains. Many people like narrow grains, but because of its age and brittleness, it will not last very long.

For more information on cricket bat willow visit www.cricketbatwillow.com

Sarawak cane is sourced from Malaysia and is imported into the UK in 2 basic thicknesses, thick and thin. The thick cane makes 1 piece handles with traditionally 1 rubber spring insert and the thin pieces are laminated together to make 9 or 12 piece handles with 2 or 3 rubber spring inserts.

Sarawak is graded by straightness and evenness of the stranding. The best pieces of cane are straight with even strands. Cane is used in the handle for its stiffness, lightness and natural strength. All these characteristics are needed when striking the ball at over 100mph. Cane is delivered in pole lengths of around 1.5 metres (60 inches) in length.

Willow Preparation

The clefts of willow arrive at the factory roughly sawn and waxed at each end, which is done to prevent splitting when drying. The first job is to saw the cleft to length removing the waxed ends. The second job is to plane the face to reveal a clean workable surface. At this stage the blade is ready for the key process in making any cricket bat, pressing.

The pressing process gives the face of the cleft a case hardening to withstand the force of striking a ball. The basic philosophy of pressing is that the compacted fibres on the face spring with the soft open fibres in the back of the cleft.

The knocking in process is essential before play as this eases the initial compactness of the pressing. The more knocking in done eases this compactness and allows the bat to perform and spring better when striking the ball. This is why a bat will get better with age. Unless blades are pressed correctly bats do not perform.

Cleft Back Preparation

Once the cleft is pressed the back is roughly planed to give the basic shape of a cricket bat blade. This rough shaping will vary dependent of the final model shape to be made. At this point the cleft is ready to be fitted with a cane handle.

Handle Construction

Single Spring Handle

The Sarawak poles are cut to length 30 centimetres (12 inches) and then sawn down the centre to approximately two thirds of the length of cane. Rubber, Cork or a mixture of both are then inserted into the sawn centre and glued with woodwork PVA glue. The handle is left for 24 hours for the glue to set and then it is ready for turning. The cane piece is then put into a lathe and turned to the basic handle shape. The basic shapes will either be round, tapered or oval shaped.

Shoulders & Toes

Once the splice has set the toes are shaped and shoulders cut out. These are cut by spindle cutters to give the basic shape for the bat makers to work from

Hand Shaping

From this point all Fearnley bats are hand shaped and crafted to each piece of wood’s characteristics. The bat makers lovingly shape the willow by manual planers & spoke shaves to maximise each cleft of wood’s optimum balance. Once the initial shape has been done by hand the bat is then sanded and polished to a perfect finish.

Shaping in modern times can also be done on large copying lathes or CNC computerising cutting machines. This takes the skill and art out of bat making as although every bat comes off the same it will not optimise a bat’s balance as each piece of wood is uniquely different and will need different care and attention. After all bat making is not engineering it is a skilled craft.

Binding

The bat handle is now bound with string. This adds strength to the handle and helps when fitting the rubber grip. The string is bound onto the handle whilst the bat is held in a lathe (this is why there is a hole in the toe of the bat) and glued with normal woodworking PVA glue.

Finishing

The bat is now ready for finishing where the rubber grip is applied by cone or blown on and glued. Decals are applied for the appropriate model and specialised tapes are applied for the right finish. Finally the toe guard is applied for the finishing touch and the bat is ready for sale.