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Cricket Bats - Sports
Gunn & Moore sets new
standard
Tucked away in the depths of an industrial estate in Nottingham, Gunn & Moore
has quietly set about revolutionising the manufacturing of cricket bats. Robin
Barwick went to see how
M
aking cricket bats is a craft branded years of research and development and investment The new system gives Gunn & Moore virtually
with mystique and varnished in in excess of £500,000, and Gunn & Moore’s new limitless design freedom – with the greatest of ease
sentiment. It has always been a trade groundbreaking DXM process has been in full – while the five-axis machine perfects the weight
carried out by skilled, bare hands, with trade operation since July 2008. distribution of every cricket bat. In turn that will
secrets passed down the generations from Through a four-year Knowledge Transfer guarantee an exceptional ‘pick-up’ (or feel) to
one craftsman to another in a workshop Partnership with the Building Research every single Gunn & Moore bat.
scattered with willow shavings and saw dust. Establishment, which was sponsored by the DTi, Peter Wright, Gunn & Moore managing director,
This tradition has continued to the modern Gunn & Moore scrutinised every stage of a bat- is delighted with the advances his team has made.
day virtually untouched, even in the making process that has evolved at the company “By using the perfect blend of tradition and
globalised, television-obsessed 21st century since 1892, from sourcing willow, preparing the technology, the company has been able to develop
that has seen international cricketers play a willow for production, the pressing process and even further the art of bat-making developed in
one-day game with $1 million-a-head at shaping the bats. Nottingham by a long line of Gunn & Moore
stake. The first stage of this process that has been master craftsmen for over 120 years.”
This traditional, organic bat-making process is, improved enormously is drying out the raw willow Technological advance in manufacturing
however, riddled with inconsistency, inaccuracy clefts. The clefts arrive with a moisture content of normally leads to redundancies, but Wright is
and waste, with no two bats every genuinely being around 40%, and the optimum content for a understandably proud that he has not had to lay
the same. To those outside the sport it might be cricket bat is 10-12%. It used to take 12 months of off a single employee, and he takes particular pride
surprising to learn that, in fact, this antiquated storage to reach that desired content, but Gunn & in the fact that Gunn & Moore has kept the entire
process still exists within bat-making factories Moore has found a kiln that will gently warm the manufacturing process on its home pitch:
around the world. clefts to 40 degrees C (any warmer and the willow “Although Gunn & Moore could, like its major
Cricket has been waiting for a bat-maker to will become brittle and discoloured), and reduce competitors, have moved production to India or
modernise and find that delicate balance between the drying process to just 17 days. Pakistan, the four years of research pointed to a
efficient manufacturing and ancient craft, to The most dramatic element of Gunn & Moore’s more long-lasting and cost-effective way of
produce the exact bat specifications that today’s DXM process has been the installation of a giant sourcing and converting English willow into cricket
cricketers want, when they want it, with reliability, five-axis CNC (computer numerical control) router bats."
but without losing that hand-finished attention a that shapes the pressed clefts into cricket bats in a One of the practical advantages of keeping the
robot can’t replicate. matter of seconds. Gunn & Moore took its concept factory in the UK is that the willow does not have
Sitting barely out of the shadow of one of to three established software houses before it to be imported, as exhaustive experiments have
cricket’s grand old grounds, Nottingham’s test could find boffins capable of producing a proved that the only climatic conditions that
match venue Trent Bridge, Gunn & Moore has programme to generate computer-aided bat produce willow with the exact characteristics for
stepped up to the crease and sent bat-making designs that could be delivered to the five-axis cricket bats are, believe it or not, in England.
inefficiency into the River Trent. It has taken four machine. “We have retained all our knowledge and
Paperless design from GM with CAD
Cutting each GM cleft – the very
Every GM bat is finished by a master craftsman GM computer aided man
heart of the new process.
16 SGB SPORT JANUARY 2009
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