One must always take time to prepare for the future and the unexpected whether that means planning for retirement, purchasing insurance for possible future issues, or structuring a will for the inevitable. It’s is important to plan to ensure that we maintain our standard of living despite what life may through at us. In the case of a friend of mine he is in the planning phase of preparing for a zombie apocalypse. It’s something that weighs heavy on his mind and he decided it was time to make a proactive movement towards making sure he can get them before they can get him.

I have to admit that I would be a noon time snack for a Zombie since I have done nothing to educate, or prepare, myself for their coming. However my friend has a vast amount of knowledge on the subject and therefore has provided me with some direction. It turns out that in order to protect oneself from a Zombie you need to sever the Zombie’s brain from the body. Apparently you don’t want to miss with the attempt as things apparently get real ugly. It appears that a shotgun serves this purpose very well however certain situations sometimes dictate the need for a different method. After some exhaustive research my friend I came up with the Zombie Bat concept. The design is really quite simple and it includes a 20 inch blade mounted to a Louisville Slugger. The idea is that the zombies can be dealt with at close range while the living, which is after the food supply, can be beat away with the other end without causing death. It’s all about safety.

Since this is a relatively new and revolutionary step in weapons design we felt as though a proto type was in order. After rummaging through his garage my friend emerged with a well used baseball bat. So with the bat in hand, a Sharpie, and a chunk of cardboard the design team went to work carefully calculating out the required specifications. With the raw material collected and the blueprint complete there was nothing left to do but create.

Using the cardboard template as a rough guideline a basic shape was plasma cut from .125” mild low carbon steel (not using blade worthy carbon steel for the prototype) The edges were sanded and a basic form was produced.

The milling machine was used to notch the bat out to accept the blade. Using a .250” end mill a 1.75” deep hole was milled into the bat in 2 spots. The bat was then cross drilled to accept the hardware for securing the blade. A .750” router bit was used to create a step in the cross drilled holes in order to allow the soon to be machined spacer something to clamp onto.

The spacer’s used to secure the blade were spun from 1” 6061 aluminum. They were stepped in order to allow both the blade and the wood to be clamped down. They were threaded to accept a 6mm socket head bolt and then countersunk to allow for flush mounting of the head.

With the bat assembled some test swinging could be made. Although the blade makes the weapon a little top heavy with a bit of practice, and technique, some good follow through inertia can be had. Although this is only a proto type with the blade left unsharpened this first unit would still buy you a few more survival minutes then if you didn’t have it.