Dented Bat Repair for Dummies

dented softball bat

Several of our staffers are current or former softball players. A few are even old enough to remember a time when the only bats were wood; but even they have been known to use an aluminum bat from time to time. The question of dented bats comes up from time to time. Using one in a sanctioned game is a rule violation, mostly because it could be dangerous. What do you do if your favorite bat is dented? Well, if you believe freelancer Giselle Diamond and her SportsRec.com article "How to Get a Dent out of a Softball Bat," you just take the bat to your favorite auto body shop...

The only problem we can find with Diamond's article is that the freelancer; despite all that "distinguished experience in home and garden, culture and society, literature and psychology"; has just one point of intersection with softball: it's played on a diamond. She certainly has no connection with metalworking.

Giselle tells her readers that "an aluminum bat's dent can be removed with the right tools and equipment." Perhaps that's true – if you happen to have a manufacturing facility for aluminum bats. Most bat makers will replace a dented bat if it's under warranty, but after that? You're probably S.O.L. It's a safe bet that your weekend softball enthusiast can't do this:

1. Drill a hole in the dent
2. Use a dent puller to smooth out the dent
3. Spot weld the hole with a MIG welder [NOTE: we hear that most people use TIG on aluminum]
4. Grind down the weld with a Dremel® tool

We searched long and hard for directions like this on the web and, frankly, we can only find one Yahoo Answers forum where anyone even suggested using a dent puller on a dented bat. Nowhere does Diamond indicate where she came by the cockamamie notion that you can use an automotive dent puller on an aluminum bat, and no version of her eHow post includes a reference. In other words, it appears that this freelancing English/psych major decided to repurpose a how-to for auto body repair. After all, metal is metal, right? Small wonder she's our Dumbass of the Day again (this makes four times, eh, Giselle?)

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