Day 1: May 8

Day 1 of Turning on the Lathe

By: Cal Wilby

Today was my first day of senior project and I got to the woodshop at 9 am for my morning session. Greg and I started by making a plan for every step of the bat-making process, every bat I make will be 32 inches long, however, they start at 3x3x36 inches. I first used the chop saw and cut my first blank down to 34 1/2 inches and from there, I started turning on the lathe, took the square shape, and started making it circular. I then took different diameters on different parts of the bat, started taking down the wood, and started to taper the bat more and more. I worked from 9 am to 12 pm in the morning, then had lunch and resumed work at 1 pm, and ended at 3 pm. I also had a baseball game against Tilton this afternoon. Tapering the bat is much more complex and time-consuming than I had first thought and also a lot more sawdust flies off the lathe as well. There was so much sawdust from tapering the bat, that I had wood in my nose when I used a tissue. Overall I worked 5 hours today which gives me 5 out of my overall 55 hours for senior project. 

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