Your Cricket Bat Preperation Help

[formula1man]

I bought a new Puma Ballistic GTR.
It is English willow.
I will only be using it in the nets for a while.
But it says it is pre-prepared.
This is what the tag says.
"Your bat has been pre-prepared to save you the time of initial knocking in period. Puma have also applied a protective facing for additional protection, this is a synthetic cover that is adhered to the face of the bat and does not require maintenance or oiling. Your bat will be ready for immediate use against old balls, once you apply two coating of linseed oil to the exposed willow areas.

Now Ive never prepared a bat before and this is a very expensive bat. What do i need to do. Im not sure how to oil it properly. Plus there are only small areas of exposed willow, on the shoulder, some of the edge and the back, plus tiny areas on the splice. Do you oil these tiny areas? how do you do it without ruining the stickers. The entire face is covered in the protective film. plus it has a toe guard. I will use old balls at first too.
PLEASE HELP

 

[Highlander999]

LOL, my dad bought by bat for me when I was up in Aberdeen and he just took the synthetic cover off

 

[IloveGilly]

Too much crap goes with Knocking in a bat. When I got mine, I used a few old balls and just sat down while watching TV and knocked it in slowly at first then went harder after that. Then I should've put a layer of oil on it and continued it but I didn't even put the oil on.

Not exactly sure about what you're meant to do, a whole load of crap already proposed on your bat. I would guess you need to oil the edges and the exposed areas at first, it seems like the whole face has already been prepared for sure. After putting the two coats on, I would probably just knock it in a few times with an old ball.

Don't take my word on it!

 

[Jakester1288]

Well oil it so that if you hold it vertical there is no oil running down the bat, lightly at first, I use a cloth. When that dries, do another layer, then when that dries start knocking it in. Either use a mallet (recommended) or just an old ball and watch T.V or something while hitting the bat on the face and edges. When you first do it, it doesn't matter if there is seam marks from the ball. But when you are finishing, if there are still seam marks when you hit the bat, you should keep going. I know you are supposed to do a ridiculous amount of hours of this, something between 6-10, but I haven't had a major problem when I did mine or something like 2.