Baseball Bat Hammer Handle

You might not remember this picture from my first post, but it is now relevant.  The ball peen hammer with half the handle missing was called to my attention when a friend suggested making a hammer handle from a baseball bat.  I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to make a new handle for it and to utilize my newly acquired wood turning abilities.

From raiding garage sales and thrift stores, I found a couple of small bats that will fit the bill.

The first thing I did was cut off the unneeded portion (for use in a later project).  I center punched the handle end to fit in the lathe like this, chucking on the outer diameter of the cut end.

I did this so I could get a nice flat surface with the parting tool.  Since it was held in the lathe with a center, it wasn't possible to cut all the way to the middle, so I broke it off once it got close enough.

This allowed me to accurately find the center.  I punched 3 centers in this end to do some eccentric turning, to make it oval shaped, a technique I learned from this video.

Now using the wood turning center, I put it in and took a skim cut to reduce the diameter on the end.

Then, moving the live center to the other centers, I took the eccentric cuts.  I then sanded it smooth and stripped the original finish.

Since the center punches were a bit close to the edge, it caused it to split a little.  After turning, I cut an inch off to get rid of the cracked portion and to remove the unsightly center marks.

Then, much wood filing to make the end fit into the hammer head.

All assembled with the wedge knocked in, fortunately the whole thing didn't split in half like I expected.

Lastly, I sprayed the handle with some clear coat for protection and gloss.