Bat Rolling Machines 101

What type of bat rolling machines are there?
There are 2 types of bat rolling machines. There are Parallel Units similar to our Panther Series Machines and Perpendicular Machines (similar to our older BR2008 which is now obsolete). All of our Panther Parallel Bat Rolling Machines can roll your bat Parallel or Perpendicular. We finding that Perpendicular rolling is a thing of the past now. With the current manufacturing techniques being used by most manufacturers the entire bat rolling process is slowly transitioning from the older out of date methods to a more time consuming process that requires pre heating and a new slightly lower compression levels on a parallel machine.


Can you briefly explain your bat rolling process?
Most companies determine the maximum rolling pressure and start at that pressure. This is totally incorrect and usually causes durability problems and also potentially causes your paint to spider web or dent prematurely. We roll all bats in 2-3 progressive compression points (depending on the type of bat). After we've rolled your bat it will have 400+ rotations through the machine (in some cases your bat will require more passes). Our Professional Bat Rolling processes takes longer than those charging less than us but we want you to be happy so we don't cut corners. We are also offering Heated bat rolling. This new process will benefit our customers with big barrel baseball bats and those of you with newer 2012/2013 softball bats. We envision as things progress over the next years you will see many more manufactures developing new composite designs that will make heated rolling a requirement. What we've found is that most of the newer bats respond better after heating. Using previous rolling methods you would reach a substantial amount of compression on your 3rd or 4th compression setting. Most of these new bats will actually benefit from using a Moderate amount of compression with more Parallel rotations. In previous parallel rolling processes most companies would but 10-20 complete rotations on your bat at each compression setting. What is actually working best now is to increase the amount of complete rotation to 40+ rotations at the moderate setting. This will avoid premature breakage from over compression. When you combine this with the Pre Heating you see much better overall performance increase on these newer bats. It also will protect you from your bat from the unraveling of the composite material that are issues with the older rolling styles. Overall you will achieve MUCH better results.


Why should I roll my bat?
When rolling a bat, it's placed between three rollers of a bat rolling machine and then pressure is applied so that as the bat passes through the Bat Roller the bats fibers are stretched out and the resin holding the layers together is broken down. On aluminum bats the aluminum barrel material becomes a little more flexible after rolling. Our Pre Heating Process will allow the layers to become more flexible and on most newer bats will add additional benefits as compared to not pre heating your bat. The is the same thing that happens as you take hours of batting practice. This causes the fibers to become more flexible which greatly improves the bat's trampoline effect. This trampoline effect is what produces the batted ball speed and distance. It will also widen the sweet spot of the bat which will make you a more consistent hitter.

Will rolling my bat shorten it's life?
Bat Rolling will minimally effect the durability and life of your bat. We estimate around 5%. This should NOT be considered an issue since this 5% is by far worth the sacrifice when you factor in the performance increase gained by bat rolling.

How will rolling effect a bat that already been rolled?
Even bats the have been used will benefit from our rolling process. We get bats in every week that have 300-400 hits on them and after we get the bats back to the owner they are very surprised with the results. In most cases you haven't properly broken your bat in and after a good rolling your bat will performance at it's highest potential.

Is bat rolling legal?
We recommend you consult the rules for your particular association or league since the rules are always changing.

What type of bats can be rolled?
Any aluminum or composite bat can be rolled to increase the performance. This includes Softball bats (Fastpitch or Slowpitch) and Baseball bats (2 1/4", 2 5/8" and 2 3/4" barrels). Aluminum bats in general do not benefit as much as Composite bats but will benefit somewhat. Independent tests have shown Aluminum bats will gain between 10-20 feet distance by rolling. Double wall aluminum bats are better than single wall aluminum.

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