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Painting a Softball Bat

 
For all of the softball fans out there that don't like the rules here is a quick how to for baseball bat modifications. In this demonstration I am going to turn my worth into a custom Jimmo bat. You could also turn your illegal mikken into a nice & easy synergy, a bit more stenciling involved.
 
Here is how we started:
 
worth baseball bat
 
What we do next is remove the old paint, a quick and easy way is using some paint stripper on a red scotchpad. Watch how easy it comes off:
 
{flowplayer}http://refinishnetwork.com/videos/uploads/bat.flv{/flowplayer}
 
We are down to the metal like so:
 
baseball bat metal
 
So next we sand it with some 120 grit paper, tape it off and apply some epoxy primer. Once the primer is dry it is given a quick wetsand with some 600 grit paper and the first color is applied.
 
bat with paint
 
This bat is going to be black with white lettering so i'm applying the white basecoat first and will be taping off my design and then applying some black, peeling up the tape and will have the design i'm after. I'm keeping this pretty simple but you could go as crazy as you want.
 

The next step is to create your design, I used Adobe photoshop and made something I could trace out fairly easily:

 

monitorjimmoslug

 

printout

 

The next step is to put your tape in place on the bat. I just used 3 strips of 2" tape, tranfer tape would be ideal. Next I taped the paper onto the bat like so:

 

batdecalattatched
 
 
Next I've traced the outline with an sharp knife, it cut's through my tape below leaving the design in sticker form on my bat. Here is what the tape under looks like:
 
bat tape
 
It's hard to see but the outline of my cutting exist's. I'll go over it again now with the paper removed so it comes up easier. Here it starts to take shape:
 
battpaea
 
 
once I get it all removed I'm left with my design here:
 
stenciled bat
 
 
I've now decided I want to put a blue circle around the lettering so now I've sprayed it blue:
 
jimslug
 
Now I've taken a piece of 1/4" piece of tape and pressed it down around the lettering, next I spray it black:
 
blackbat
 
Right about now your probably getting pretty bored, when's the bat gonna start to look cool? Baseball bat's take time, cut me some slack. So next thing is pull up all of that tape I have in place reserving my design......and bam!!
 
jimmoslug bat basecoat
 
The Jimmoslug 3000 XL is starting to take shape. My lettering is a little bit sloppy looking at this point so I'm going to clear it now, sand it then touch up a few spots (and reclear again). It will take a few times sanding and reclearing to get a nice flush look so the letters don't look sunk in compared to the rest. Here is what it will look like more or less once complete:
jimmoslug cleared
 
Alright I changed my mind and put in a blue stripe instead of the white, gave it 3 more coats of clear, sanded it with 400 then 600 grit paper and gave it 2 more over reduced coats. So this is the final result, hopefully It has a few dingers left.
 
jimmbatfinal
 
 

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