How to Care for your Wood Bat

Because we take so much care when we make your Rock Maple or Yellow Birch wood bat, we want to show you how to care for your bat and make it last:

Never ever throw your wooden bat. MaxBats were not meant to be thrown, nor is any other piece of equipment except the baseball.
Thin handled wood bats are not always your best option. The thinner the handle, the less mass it has. The majority of our wood bats feature a handle diameter of 15/16″ for feel, and strength, and it’s what most professionals want. For most players a medium handle wood bat is the way to go!
Practice with soft toss and tee work when you first use your new wood bat. This will help train your eye to ensure proper contact with the ball when facing live pitching.
Always position the bat in your hands so the MaxBat logo is facing you (up), or that the logo is on the opposite side facing away from you (down). We take great care to place our MaxBat logo on top of the wood grain to ensure that when a pitched ball is struck, you will make contact with the wood bats strongest surface. The positioning of the label will help you find the “sweet spot” on your bat. Hitting the baseball squarely on the sweet spot will help you reach the fences and beyond!
Don’t leave your wooden bat in the trunk on a hot day. Your car can become an oven. High heat can bake the moisture out of your bat causing it to become brittle. Long periods of exposure to heat is not good for any bat. This is why you want to avoid purchasing a bat from a sporting goods store window. Bats are like people, we want to be comfortable, not hot or cold.
Don’t hesitate to send us an e-mail at info@maxbats.com with any of your questions. We love hearing from you.

The better you can take care of your wood bats, the longer they will last.

MaxBat Wood Bats Protected in a bat case

Categories: Baseball Bats, Baseball Training, Birch Bats, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats

Tags: baseball bat, Birch Bats, custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, maple wood bats, wood baseball bat, wood bat company, wood bat manufacturer, wooden bat

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What is the proper way to hold a wood bat?

We are frequently asked by customers “how should I hold a wood bat”? It’s actually a good question, because with the variety of wood species to make wood bats, there’s a difference of opinion depending on what kind of wood bat you’re swinging.

Let’s start with how to hold the wood bat, and then we’ll get into the specifics.

First, hold your wood bat upright so the manufacturer’s logo (in this case, a MaxBat logo) is centered. Which means you’re looking right at it. Now, if you are a right-handed batter, slightly turn the wood bat in your hand so the MaxBat logo is facing your left shoulder. If you are a left-handed batter, you would do just the opposite (slightly turn the wood bat in your hand so the MaxBat logo is facing your right shoulder.

But, why do we need to do this with wood bats, and not with aluminum? Because wood bats have different flexes, and one side is harder than the other, etc., etc. So, we want you to hold your wood bat in your hand, so that when you swing it, the hardest side of the wood bat barrel is making contact with the baseball. By positioning the MaxBat logo to face your left shoulder (Right-Handed batter), or your right shoulder (Left-Handed batter), the MaxBat logo should be facing straight up to the sky when the wood bat barrel makes contact with the baseball.

So, what’s the big advantage to that? We place the logo on either the Face-Grain (Ash Wood Bats), or Edge-Grain (Maple Wood Bats and Birch Wood Bats) so that when you position the wood bat in your hand correctly, you will be hitting the ball on the hardest side of the wood bat barrel. Hitting the ball on this side of the wood bat barrel has been proven to extend the longevity of your wood bat.

Prior to 2009, it was believed that the manufacturer’s logo should always be placed on the face-grain of wood bats. However, after extensive testing that was mandated by MLB, it was established that the manufacturer’s logo should be placed on the edge-grain of Maple wood bats and Birch wood bats.

So there you have it. Just another tidbit on wood bats, from your friends at MaxBat. Makers of the finest wood bats on the planet.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Birch Bats, Maple Bats, Metal bats, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bat, Wood Bats

Tags: birch wood bats, maple wood bats, wood bat, Wood Bats

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Differences between Maple Bats and Birch Bats

Wood bats give you options that metal bats do not. And the most obvious option, is that you can get a wood bat in a number of wood species…..Maple, Birch, and Ash are the 3 most common.

Recent numbers show that MLB players prefer Maple Bats over the rest, but you might be surprised to find out that Birch Bats have taken over the 2nd spot over Ash Bats in what pro players use in games.

So what’s the difference between the 3 species? First, let’s go over Maple Bats vs. Ash Bats. Maple bats are very rigid, and this gives them tremendous pop. Ash has more flex, and some players like this because the ash wood bat can feel like it gives them a little more whip. The downfall with ash is that it can break down with repeated use, and that’s simply because of the nature of the wood grains.

Now, explaining the differences between Maple Bats and Birch Bats is a little more difficult to do because the two species are so similar. Both species are GREAT for making wood bats. One species is NOT going to be lighter than the other, as a lot of people think…..but what is lighter? A pound of bricks, or a pound of feathers? They both weigh a pound folks. Same with Maple and Birch.

The biggest difference between a Maple Bat and a Birch Bat is the flex. Many players say that a Birch Bat is the perfect mix of a Maple Bat and an Ash Bat, because it has the hardness of Maple, but the flex of Ash. However, it’s really not that simple. Birch definitely has more flex than Maple, but it doesn’t compare to the flex of Ash.

So, what’s the best wood bat for you? That’s going to be your own personal preference. But now you know a little bit more about the wood species options when choosing a wood bat.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Birch Bats, Maple Bats, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bat, Wood bat company, Wood Bats

Tags: Birch Bats, Maple Bats, wood bat, Wood Bats

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Ink-spots on the bat handles of Maple Bats and Birch Bats

Ever watch a game on TV and ask yourself, “What is that dot on the wood bat handle?”

That is an area left exposed during the finishing process for an ink-spot, administered by the bat manufacturer. This is done as a quality control measure. By placing a small drop of ink 12″-14″ up from the knob on the face grain of the wood bat, we are able to verify whether or not the grain is good. The picture below shows a properly administered ink-test, and absolutely straight grain. The straighter the grain, the better the performance of the Maple bat or Birch bat. If the grain were to seep into the wood and show a slope-of-grain of more than 3 degrees, that would indicate wood of a lower quality and greater chance of the wood bat breaking in 2-pieces.

Because MaxBat uses wood that is split instead of sawn, we’re almost guaranteed that ink-testing reveals slope-of-grain of less than 2 degrees on any of our Maple bats or Birch bats.

It’s a question we frequently get asked, so we made the decision in November, 2013 to start ink-spotting all MaxBat Maple bats and Birch bats that are ordered by our online customers.

All MaxBats have always been treated as if they are being produced for a Major League Baseball player, and now each Maple bat and Birch bat from MaxBat features a visible ink-spot on the face grain of the handle. This ink-spot indicates that the wood bat has not only gone through the MLB slope-of-grain quality control test, but has also passed with a slope-of-grain less than 3 degrees (beware…some companies simply applying ink dots to the handles that clearly don’t pass). The MaxBat logo has also been rotated 90 degrees and placed on the edge grain to conform to MLB rules (adopted in 2009) that only apply to Maple bats and Birch bats (logo previously placed on the face grain). These steps ensure that you are swinging the same wood as our professional clients.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Birch Bats, Maple Bats, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bats

Tags: Birch Bats, Maple Bats, MaxBat, wood bat, Wood Bats

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How to Care for your Wood Bat