Article from August 2010

Ward Dill is a man of many talents. The president of Radial Bat, a Warren, NJ-based company that makes engineered solid-wood baseball bats, Dill is a graduate of MIT and has degrees in econometrics, marketing and finance. He has worked as a financial analyst, marketing and business-development executive, and management consultant for companies integrating new technologies.

Of all his accomplishments, there are two things Dill says he clearly loves doing best: playing baseball and lathing wood. It was this passion for baseball and his creative woodworking that gave him the idea to forge a baseball bat from multiple wedges of wood.

After doing some research, Dill figured that a 12-wedge design would ensure that at least three wedges of the bat would always make contact with the ball. If the wedges, each of which are cut from planks of ash and maple, were selected and oriented properly, he could produce a tight grain pattern completely around the surface of the bat.

A finished Radial Bat, when viewed directly from the top or bottom, resembles a miniature pizza pie made of 12 thin slices. Beyond these densely packed wedges, the Radial Bat looks, feels and plays very much like a traditional bat cut from a single piece of wood. However, Dill says, Radial Bats are difficult to break and, if they do, they won’t shatter or splinter into broken projectiles.

According to Radial Bat, some major league professionals, college and high school teams, women's softball groups and Little League organizations are using the company's training bats. A growing number of schools and Little League teams also have shown an interest in using Radial Bat game models. However, the game model bats are not approved by Major League Baseball for official use because they violate the "one-piece" bat rule.

The Manufacturing Process
From the beginning, the manufacturing of the radial bats has been a slow, labor-intensive process. The 12 wedges are spread out flat, adhesive is applied by roller, and the wedges are bundled together into hexagon-shaped billets. The billets are then pressed under 36 tons of pressure. After the adhesive bond sets, the billets are sent to a lathing facility, which shapes them into bats.
In 2008 Radial Bat looked for ways to speed up the process, particularly the press time. It began experimenting with a PUR adhesive from Henkel Corp.

"[They] wanted to accelerate press time as much as possible but still have the handling time to be able to accommodate a manual process," says George Gunia, regional sales manager for Lanco Adhesives, a Henkel distributor. "But there's a tricky balance between using the glue by hand, brushing it on, and getting the parts put together before the glue begins to set and catalyze by itself."
Radial Bat switched its process to a one-part liquid Henkel PUR that promised a much faster setting time and better penetration than Radial Bat's current adhesive. PUR adhesives tend to be flexible and pliable, making them suitable for absorbing the high-impact stresses of a ball striking a bat.

"We are careful about what we do, so we did a lot of stress tests to convince ourselves that we were going to be okay with this approach," Dill says. "And then we whaled on these bats; we took bats that were made with the adhesive and put them out on the roof and let them be snowed on and rained on for several weeks. In terms of durability and a maintaining of the feel of the bat over time, this glue has done a spectacularly good job for us."

According Bill Lowndes, Radial Bat's production manager, the faster setting time of Henkel's PUR cut Radial Bat's manufacturing time by two-thirds, exponentially boosting the number of billets it could produce using the same infrastructure. This increased production capability will enable Radial Bat to produce over 20,000 bats in 2010.

Class Product
Dill says the new production system will make it easier for him to create a distinctive and attractive alternative to aluminum and composite bats.

There are a lot of people who agree. Kevin Long, the hitting coach of the New York Yankees, has produced a youth training video featuring Alex Rodriguez using the company's training bats. Ken Eriksen, assistant coach of Team USA Women's Softball is also endorsing the bats. Several baseball training academies are selling the bats, as are a number of sporting goods stores.

And while traditional wood bats can vary between recreational and professional models, "Radial Bat offers one class of product," says Dill.

"The same product that we give to Alex Rodriguez is the same quality as the bat we give to a Little League kid. We don't make any distinction; our quality process is the same for everybody."
 

Radial Bat Owner Ward Dill displays the performance-enhanced structure of the bat.