Question- Can you make a baseball bat from bois-d'arc wood? I know they make them with common woods, like ash, maple, and bamboo. But can you use a harder wood like bois-d'arc, to make the bat more solid? Or is this wood too dense and the bat be too heavy? I'm not a wood guy, so let me know. Thanks!

You could but they got away from most hardwoods because it slows down the speed of the at. Look it up.

I would think a denser wood would have less pop.

Historically bats have been made from Ash. Due to a disease the supply of ash has gotten tighter so a lot of MLB players have switched to Maple.

You can use almost anything but you need to consider weight to length balances.

If you have a lathe and want to ruin some tools you can try Bois-d'Arc but make sure it has cured for a long time before you work with it.

I’ve made a lot of things with the wood that turned out nice, such as wooden mallets. Bowls didn’t turn out so great, usually. The really hard part of using the wood to make a bat, though I have never tried, is to get a chunk large enough that doesn’t have cracks and splits in it after it has dried. My folks had some enormous Bois D’Arc trees, so I used my chainsaw and cut a bunch of it with the intent to make things. Based on that effort, don’t cut the wood when the sap is running. May be best to cut it in the winter. And then you have to research how to dry it so that it doesn’t split. I failed at that. I had pieces large enough for small projects, hence the mallets and such. A dried mallet out of that dense wood is great. You don’t get to keep the lovely gold color though. It darkens with age and sunlight. Keep it out of the sun and that good color lasts longer, but still eventually darkens.

The name translates to “bow wood”, and the Indians used it for that. Obviously they were more skilled at using it than I have been.

One thing that I do wonder is that if I took some wood from an old dead tree, would the wood be mostly dry and therefore less likely to split. I have just the tree, way back in the woods, but haven’t had the urge to deal with all the work involved.

That is the sum of my knowledge about that particular wood.

You can make bats out of any wood, but I don't know if leagues will let you play with it. I made a set of trophy bats out of walnut once, one of the kids actually used his, split that sucker on the first foul ball he hit.

If I was going to make one out of Osage Orange I would cut a fresh piece, turn to about 3/4"" of the planned finish size, then seal both ends with wax. Weigh the wood on an accurate scale, in one month weigh again, repeat the weighing each month until you have a stable blank. When you have the same weight 2 months in a row, the blank should be dried. Now turn to finished size. The green wood will turn like butter, once dried, the wood will be like a piece of pig iron. Do not turn it tooo close to finished sized, the green wood will warp some as it dries. Make sure to seal both ends good so the moisture is forced to dry through out the length, or you might get bad cracks on the end.

I would also use the carbide tipped lathe chisels during the turning process, or a good brand of tools like Hunter or Thompson and plan on sharpening it often.

I don’t know about a bat, but they make good clubs. My Grandpa kept a bois de arc club by the front door.

When I played ball in college I used an Easton 35in/31oz bat. When in pro ball I immediately tried that exact combo but found that wood was a different beast......it was much too soft for that much of an inches to oz difference. I finally wound up with a 34"/32oz that I could handle fine. I know when we picked out wood we would want the grains in the wood to be as far apart as possible, because the grain was the "soft" spots in the wood. There's no getting around it though, the more solid the wood, the heavier it will be. That's why you saw so many cupped ends in wood bats. You still got a good, dense piece of wood, but it was an easier way to knock off a few ounces in the meantime.

No. It's is fine for knife handles, makes wonderful longbows and recurves, but would be inferior for a bat due to it's density (weight). The French translation of bois d'arc is "wood of the bow".

Where is that club now? Damn d anybody get it?

35/31 is a big stick!! Not knowing your age, was it a black magic? My brother hit a HR at Ranger JuCo with a 35” Easton Black magic that the coach dared him to use. Was probably the furthest ball he ever hit.

Chad, sounds like a cool project. If it works out and is too heavy, drill out the middle and stuff with cork!

Scott, I remember those "black magic" bats, but mine was silver with green writing on it. With such a large difference in oz to weight you could really whip those things around. Wood changes all of that for sure.

Ranger had some awfully good teams back in the '80's that's for sure.

I wish I knew who took it, I’d club them for it.

The wife and I were taking a walk the other day when some girls were using composite bats to hit softballs. The sound of those bats hitting the ball sounded very much like a wood bat breaking or cracking on a baseball. After hearing the sound of wood and aluminum bats all my life, I can't say I'll ever get used to hearing this new sound.

I still hate the ping of an aluminum bat.

A friend at work is a wood worker, not really sure what all he makes, but he has a nice wood shop. About 20 years ago he asked me for a chunk of Bois-de' Arc for some project. I said sure, I have a few on my place. He gave me specific instructions. Cut the straightest piece I could find, about 6" thick, and pack in wet sand, especially the cut ends, in a burlap sack. Thinking back I think he was turning out duck calls, maybe? Anyway, I nearly wrecked a chain cutting that piece of wood, but got it packed as he wished and delivered. I asked him about a year or so later what ever became of that piece of wood. He said it wrecked the first piece of equipment he tried to use on it and left it at that. It's pretty dense, I guess. It was a heavy-[censored] piece of wood. About 4 feet long and 8 inches across.

I have heard that Indians made bows out of it. One o my best friends told me that. He was an archery hunter and wanted to make one. I would think as dense as it is it would hurt your hands when you hit a ball. Also fron what I know about cutting that stuff it will dull ever woodworking equipment you use on it. I makes a hot fire when added to a good bed of coals.