Does the LVS "smith finish" resist baseballs?

[emann]

So, I bought an Edgar Martinez LVS ash bat a little while ago and while the bat shows obvious use with a good amount of tar, tape, and a few blue marks—the finish is spotless. It was sold to me as light use but it obviously went to the plate a decent number of times since the barrel has a lot of residual tar from his gloves (he grabs the barrel to carry his bat if he strikes/pops out)... But no dents, dings, seam marks, etc.

I noticed immediately that the finish is VERY thick, like a clear coat of plastic, filling the burned in marking and coating them over. It appears to be a "smith finish", some sort of polyurethane that covers the barrel and is sanded off on the barrel end. So thick is almost looks like the bat is wrapped in plexiglass... If I can get a pic that shows how thick it is, I'll post it for reference.

That said, I have a Roberto Alomar bat which I had always thought to be a "smith finish". The same sort of coating filling in the signature and centerbrand with varnish, but it looks nothing near the amount of heavy clear coating this bat has. The varnish on that bat is much thinner and cracking/flaking off in spots. I've also seen Posada & Griffey Jr. bats similar to the Alomar, a thinner version of the coating (but still more that the general bat varnish).

My questions/thoughts are this:

Does the smith finish resist baseball marks for the most part? It seems to do so, at least for a player who isn't crushing the ball. The coating is so thick I could easily imagine hitting rocks and only leaving little nicks in the surface, nevermind a leather baseball.

Does anyone know if the player control how thick this finish can be? Are there variations on how many times it gets dipped into the coating? Sort of like Griffey's bats get dipped twice, but Edgar wanted his bats dipped seven times?

Just thought it was interesting and I could only find a few threads on GUU about this type of finish.

[Neal]

Good question. I am curious too.

[allstarsplus]

I have come across that also with LVS bats used by Josh Hamilton and Adam Dunn.

Both were cracked LVS ash that were slightly flame treated barrels and a clear finish and while there were a few blue ball marks and scuff marks there were no lace marks.

[Jags Fan Dan]

Good topic. I have a Billy Hatcher Cooper bat with the same type of finish. The bat is cracked and I can't find a good ball mark on it!

[TFig27]

Here's what BMH told me about Tino Martinez bats and he mentions Edgar:

"Tino and Posada received what we called the epoxy finish. If you have ever seen our Composite wood bat, it's what is on the outside of the bat without the fiberglass. It was a really hard finish but we could not control the weight that it added to the bat. We stopped making it after Edgar and Tino retired.

Oh yeah, the epoxy finish was much thicker and harder than the Smith finish. The problem was we couldn't control how much epoxy would be soaked into the wood. So to get say 12 bats that weight 31oz we were usually making 18 bats and taking the closest to the correct weight, it was very wasteful. They did order bats without finish too."

[gameused]

Here's what BMH told me about Tino Martinez bats and he mentions Edgar:

"Tino and Posada received what we called the epoxy finish. If you have ever seen our Composite wood bat, it's what is on the outside of the bat without the fiberglass. It was a really hard finish but we could not control the weight that it added to the bat. We stopped making it after Edgar and Tino retired.

Oh yeah, the epoxy finish was much thicker and harder than the Smith finish. The problem was we couldn't control how much epoxy would be soaked into the wood. So to get say 12 bats that weight 31oz we were usually making 18 bats and taking the closest to the correct weight, it was very wasteful. They did order bats without finish too."

Here's one Edgar's epoxy finish bats, with a heavy amount of pine tar.

Thanks,
Bobby

[emann]

Bobby-

Can you see any seam marks on the barrel of that bat?

Thanks,
-J.

[Bravesfan]

I also have an Adam Dunn bat with the same finish from his Reds days. It shows obvious use but no seam marks.

[emann]

For future reference on the epoxy finish, here are close-up pics I tried to take. All the burned in markings are filled in/covered by the clear coating and the barrel of the bat is super smooth. On my bat, it shows blue transfers but no marks or cracks in the finish (like you see on the Smith finish).