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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Engineered Innovation

At MaxBat we produce each and every wood bat in-house at our state of the art facility in Central Minnesota. We take great price in all steps of our manufacturing process. Below we’ll highlight some of the things that make our wood bat so popular.

*Power Game

The barrel is the business end of the wood bat. When building your custom model, you can choose from 3 different barrel sizes. Ranging from medium barrels (utilizes harder / strong wood which leads to a more balanced bat), to XL barrels (lower density piece of wood to achieve your desired target weight). The barrel size is completely up to you, but know that you get the highest quality piece of wood when choosing a bat model with a medium barrel.

All MaxBat wood bat barrels are bone hardened. We use a patented bone hardening process as one of our finishing touches! Our custom engineered barrel compression machine increases and maximizes the hardness of the wood. Harder wood = greater results.

*Get a Grip

The MaxBat handles vary in diameter, from thin, medium, or thick bat handles. Thin bat handles will shift weight to the barrel end and also help the player generate a bit more “whip”. The most common handle diameter is a medium handle with a diameter of 15/16 of an inch. The thick handles, 1 inch or more, give the bat more of an “old school” as this was the norm back in the day.

The style of the knob varies slightly; this will impact the bat’s balance. It will also change how the wood bat feels in the players bottom hand. We also offer non traditional knobs that each have there own advantages. The flared design of the X-Knob helps protect the hamate bone from bruising, and greatly increases the bat’s balance. Because of the shape, and where it comes in contact with your lower hand, the X-Knob can ultimately increase overall bat speed too. Pair any wood bat model with ProXR grip technology to deliver an exclusive level of hitting performance! True innovation creates a knob that works with a batter’s hands to create a smoother swing, resulting in increased bat speed and exit velocity. This unique design causes less pressure in the batter’s wrist and hand, thus being a benefit to the health and comfort of the player. This knob ads the elusive edge every hitter looks for in their bat. U.S. MaxBat ProXR is the definition of Engineered Innovation! Pat. 7,744,497

*Precision Crafted

We use years of experience and expertise to pinpoint the desired weight for your custom wood bat. When choosing your weight, we recommend a -2 weight drop with a cupped barrel end. We can certainly make your wood bat a -2.5 or -3 but keep in mind the lighter the weight the less dense the piece of wood. A -2 weight will give your wood bat a bit more pop and durability, but a -3 weight will give your bat a bit more balance and quicker swing speed.

MaxBat offers more length options that anyone in the wood bat market. All adult bats are made in 1/4 inch length increments starting at 32″ and going up to 35.5″. Several of our medium barrel adult bats are made as short as 30″.

MLB mandates all Maple and Birch bats, destined for a pro player, need to pass an ink-spot test. We put this ink-test on all of our wood bats regardless of level of play. When the ink-test in placed on the bat handle it bleeds into the non-visible tangential grains. The straighter the grain, the stronger the wood! Every bat MaxBat produces features our Engineered Innovation.

Engineered Innovation in MaxBat Manufacturing

MaxBat Manufacturing at it’s finest.

Categories: Baseball Bats, Custom baseball bat, Maple Bats, ProXR, Wood Baseball Bats, Wood Bat, Wood bat manufacturer

Tags: baseball bat, Birch Bats, Maple Bats, wood bat, wood bat barrel, wood bat company, Wood Bats

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Taping your wood bat barrel is not really necessary, depending on the wood.

Have you ever seen someone put athletic tape on the barrel of their wood bat? I bet you’ve either wondered why they do that, or you’ve followed suit and wrapped your wood bat barrel in white athletic tape. Yes?

So, why is that a thing? Here’s the answer. MLB players would wrap their ASH wood bat barrels for batting practice to help prevent the grains from flaking/separating. Because of the grain structure of ASH, it was seen as a preventative measure to help the longevity of the wood bat. This was done for many years before Maple bats and Birch bats hit the scene.

Here’s the important point however. Maple bats and Birch bats are much different than Ash bats. Maple bats and Birch bats are a closed grain wood, and will NOT flake like Ash (an open pore wood). Therefore, the more you hit with a Maple bat or a Birch bat, the grains compress more and more, whereas the more contact with an Ash bat will result in “wearing out the wood”.

So do you need to wrap your wood bat barrel in athletic tape? What about a coaches fungo? The answer is no. It’s not necessary. But if you’re contemplating this, it’s really only going to benefit an Ash wood bat, and help prevent premature grain flaking and separation. Again, Maple bats and Birch bats aren’t going to flake like an Ash bat. It’s not going to hurt anything if you tape up the barrels of your Maple bat or Birch bat, but it’s not going to accomplish anything either. Some guys just like the look, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You gotta look the part, right?

Check out the pro MaxBat coaches fungos here. Guaranteed to enable you to hit moon shots to your outfielders, over and over again.

Categories: Maple Bats, Wood Bat, Wood Bats

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

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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