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A friend wanted a book shelf for his son. He asked to make something unusual. Well, I did.
I had some old Major League Ball Bats in my storage that were looking for a place to belong. I took the old bats, cleaned them up a bit and with a little imagination used them as the corner post for the bookcase. I decided that the shelf needed to be a little more unique so I purchased some new baseballs to use as feet.
I totally ruined a few balls trying to engineer them into feet. I knew they could not support the shelf without collapsing over time and they would need some sort of support. I found you couldn't just sit them on the drill press and drill a hole straight through, sounds easy enough; but, I never could get them to remain stable long enough to drill the 5/8 hole needed for a metal dowel. I made a jig using PVC pipe do the balls could held securely in a 3 jaw chuck on the lathe.
The bats were then turned in select places to allow support of the 7/8" thick shelves without losing their integrity or showing any milling marks. The shelves are slid down the neck of the bats and attached using pocket screws. A tendon of sorts was turned at the neck to accommodate the top shelf and cut midway to allow the shelves to be slid down the shaft of the bats. Threaded inserts were used with threaded studs to reattach the bats after the shelves were installed.

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Awesome! Nice work, Wav. I've got so many bats and balls floating around this dump. Great idea.
 
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