How to Make a Baseball Bat Lamp

A baseball bat lamp makes a nice decoration for the bedroom of a little boy or a little boy at heart. Luckily, there are "make-your-own lamp" kits at craft and home improvement stores for usually less than $10. Once you have the hardware, you can make a lamp out of anything, including a baseball bat. Here's how.

Things You'll Need

• Baseball bat
• Make-your-own-lamp kit
• Lampshade
• Some type of base (literally). A home plate works nicely as a lamp base.
• Scroll saw
• Hand sander
• Super glue, Gorilla glue or wood glue

Instructions

1. Buy a wood baseball bat and a rubber home plate at a sporting goods store.

2. Saw the baseball bat in half, lengthwise, using a scroll saw. A scroll saw can make a gentle cut in the bat so as not to destroy it, as a table saw might. Line up the cut with the grain so the cut will be less obvious.

3. Sand a groove down the length of the bat with the hand sander. If the sander is square or rectangular, use a corner of the sander to sand the groove into the side of both parts of the bat. If it is a round sander, use the edge to go down the length of the two parts of the bat. The groove should be about 1 inch in diameter on both sides and about a 1/2-inch or 1-inch deep. This is where the electric cord will go.

4. Drill a one-inch hole through the center of home plate.

5. Open the "make-your-own-lamp" kit and pull out the electrical cord. Read the instructions that come with the kit.

6. Run the cable through home plate.

7. Set one side of the bat down and place the cord into the groove. Make sure there is a liberal amount of cord running through the top of the bat and enough room to keep the cord snug inside the bat.

8. Assemble the socket and the harp (for the lampshade). The kit will have instructions for how to put the hardware together. Make sure there is a way to secure the top of the lamp into the bat.

9. Use a glue adhesive to attach the other side of the bat. Press one side of the bat down on the other so the adhesive sticks. Let it dry.

10. Stand the bat upright on top of home plate. Flip the bat and home plate over and drill two small screws through home plate and into the bat so it will stand on its own.

11. Buy a lampshade or make your own. You can purchase a generic lampshade and re-cover it with fabric of your favorite baseball team. There are fabric patterns available with every MLB team's logo.

12. Insert a light bulb, plug in the lamp and turn it on.