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How To Drill For Bat Pins?


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Does anyone have any advice before I stumble through this?  I have the squares of material I want to use and a new factory drilled bat to use as a template.  What size bit do I use, and how do I get the oval hole correct?  I would hate to end up with holes too big, <_<all though I guess I could then rotate the bat and drill another set of the correct size and placement .

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Most bat pins are 3/8-use a drill press-make sure they are wll marked-you can center punch them for accuracy. I would use the next size larger only with a letter drill set-If this is all an unknown have someone else drill them who knows this. If you do not have a letter drill set (these have more sizes than standard drill sizes) you can ream them out tad with a hand 3/8 th drill after you use the 3/8th drill in a drill press.The next size up can be sloppy in a normnal dril set.

The main thing is getting the layout right.I like a tight fit without slop bt thats me.

Mark

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repeat.... to a real carpenter this is a simple thing to do.  when i took my 4x8 sheet of Duron to the expert, i wound up with a huge stack of perfectly formed circles with perfect holes in exactly the correct places, cost maybe $20.

 

it is true that being a potter is only for masochists but why bat  :rolleyes: your head against a minor problem when you could be trying to do something really impossible, like posting pictures here!

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real carpenter here and I will confess, it is simple for me.

 

I drill the holes for the bat pins before I make the bats round as I set the sq bats on a jig I made to route the bats round.   This assures that each bat will fit on a set of 10" x3/8 pins.I dill mine 3/8.

 

I mark a center line then offset 5" to both sides (making shure the overall is 10" as that is more important than true 10" OC as when I route them round they will always be OC)   I clamp a stack usually about 4" of batts together then drill all of them with a brad point drill bit on my drill press.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just got done drilling a bunch of existing plywood bats with the old 8 something inch offset.  At our community art center where I teach, we only have 1 wheel with the old style bat pins and I found a pile of bats drilled to fit that one wheel.  I took a sample bat, used a center punch to mark the holes to be drilled, then at the recommendation of someone who knows carpentry, used a fosner bit to drill the 3/8" holes.  That type of bit keeps the wood from splintering around the holes.  Worked great.  Happy drilling.

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