Painting an Aluminum Baseball (softball) bat
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:
What we do next is remove the old paint, a quick and easy way is using some paint stripper on a red scotchpad. The paint should come off the bat very easily.
We are down to the metal like so:
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.
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:
The next step is to put your tape in place on the bat. I just used 3 strips of 2″ tape, transfer tape would be ideal. Next, I taped the paper onto the bat like so:
Next, I’ve traced the outline with a sharp knife, it cut’s through my tape below leaving the design in sticker form on my bat. Here is what the tape looks like:
It’s hard to see but the outline of my cutting exists. I’ll go over it again now with the paper removed so it comes up easier. Here it starts to take shape:
once I get it all removed I’m left with my design here:
I\’ve now decided I want to put a blue circle around the lettering so now I’ve sprayed it blue:
Now I’ve taken a piece of 1/4″ piece of tape and pressed it down around the lettering, next I spray it black:
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 to pull up all of that tape I have in place reserving my design……and bam!!
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:
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.
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So cool @@
Hey thank you for taking the time to help me out I was curious on what exact paint did you use because I want to paint my bat but I need to make sure I’m using the right material
Do you re paint bats? or just giving a lesson? I’m thinking about getting a bat re painted.
Interested in hiring you to paint a bat for me.
Interested in hiring you to paint a bat for me.
Can you do a Miken Composire bat? What about the ASA Label?
Can you do a Miken Composire bat? What about the ASA Label? Would you fix mine as well, and how much ?
Would you paint a stripped bat for me if I sent it to you? How much?
How much would you charge to repaint a bat?
can you paint an ultra 2 to look like a freak 98
Can you make my baseball bat look like its bbcor certified ?
Can you paint a baseball bat
This was exactly what Ive been looking for I love my Bombat 1980s but these people who say what’s legal and what you should use instead.. Awesome info. I think it was the difference in doing a botched job and a beautiful bat