Make It - Lucille Prop Replica - 100% REAL

I wanted my own Lucille, but I didn't want to cheat by buying a bat. I decided to make my own!

If you want to skip building your own bat from scratch, skip to step 2.

The build video covers all the steps and is worth a watch if you plan on building your own!

Step 1: Baseball Bat Blank

Alright, lets burn through this quick since I doubt most of you are going to turn your own bat or maybe you already have a solid piece of wood you want to use for a blank. I'm going to make my own from some cherry wood I saved from a dumpster.

Choose your material (test samples with stain to get your colour right)

Chop your pieces down to size

Flatten two sides on the jointer

Plane the other side of your board down to the desired thickness on the aptly named thickness planer

Apply a high-quality glue to one side of the board

Spread the glue evenly

Clamp the pieces of wood together and let it cure for a day

Cut the excess material off the blank to make a perfectly square piece block of wood.

Step 2: Chuck Up the Blank

I marked center on both ends of the blank and hot glued some sacrificial pieces of wood onto each end. This lets me make use of the entire blank and results in less waste. One side was circular so it would fit the chuck jaws, the other side was just a small square block since a live center will just be poked into it.

Step 3: Turn the Bat

I turned the blank into the round (knocked off the corners) and then make marks every 3 inches down the length. These marks will be used to set the thickness of the bat as I'm turning it down to final dimensions. Using a caliper and a cut guide which is easily found online, I set the depth and then connect the dots to create the shape of the bat. I get closer and closer, blending them all together until I'm left with a semi-smooth shape. I then turn the lathe speed down and sand the entire thing with an orbital sander. I then worked my way up to 400 grit sand paper before burnishing the entire bat with the chips and shavings I just cut from the blank. This smooths and polishes the bat slightly.

Step 4: Paint and Stain

I printed out an oval based on the old Louisville slugger logo, taped it over a piece of vinyl sign material and cut out a painting template. I attached it to the bat using screenshots from the show as reference material for placement. I then gave the bat several coats of dark walnut danish oil. Your stain choice is going to depend on the species of wood you use for the bat. Test on a discrete location or a scrap piece of a wood if possible. After the oil had cured, I knocked off the pieces of wood that were hot glued on and sanded the ends smooth.

Step 5: Barbedwire!

I used 12 feet of 18.5 gauge wire, I should have used 15 feet. C'est la vie. It's cheap and easy to get in small quantities on Ebay.

I painted my wire with black, brown and a smidge of red paint. Before the paint had a chance to dry, I wiped off the excess with some paper towel.

I started tacking down the wire with staples again using screenshots as a reference. I predrilled the holes for the staples to prevent splitting and to make it easier to hammer the staples in. I pinned the loose wire with foot and twisted the bat around to make sure wire was pulled tight while stapling. There were a couple pieces that were loose after I was done so I just tacked them into place with more staples.

Step 6: Make a Bullet

Spoiler Alert... Lucille has been shot. I needed to make a 9mm bullet so I drilled a 10mm hole in a hard piece of ipe, melted some lead shot and poured it into the hole. The lead cools quickly and after shrinking, it was almost exactly 9mm so that's a win!

Step 7: Placing the Bullet

I drilled a hole, added some super glue and placed the bullet. I hammered the bullet afterward to make it look like it was fired into the bat and not just glued. #realism

Step 8: Finishing Up

I added finish to the two ends of the bad and had to touch up the circle a little. Having to rotate the bat so much to wrap the wire rubbed off most of the paint. I also added a little black paint to the bullet.

Hope you enjoyed this instructable, If you have any questions I urge you to watch the build video and leave a comment below.

Links for all the supplies I used can be found in the Video Description

Here is the video one more time just in case you still haven't watched it.