SUPPLIES:
-Baseball bat at flea market, $3.
-14 Guage galvanized steel wire (for barbed wire body), $12.
-17 Guage galvanized steel wire (for barbs), $4.
-Wrap wire then bend barbs (the actual stuff is too expensive and too thick use easily).
-Spray wire from all sides with cheap brown primer, $5
-Various cheap brown acrcylic paints at Wal*mart for $8 to touch up barbed wire AFTER wrapping bat.
-THICK $12 leather gloves to protect hands when pulling wire tight to wrap around bat.
-Six hours over a few days building this fun prop.

WARNING:
I strongly advise against using barbed wire found in the wild as it is rusty and a severe tetenis risk (unless you have a fetish for shots).

TIPS:
-I STRONGLY recommend building your own thinner guage barbed wire as it more accurately resembles the comic version of Lucille.
-Make 6 to 8 feet of barbed wire.
-While you can use fasteners to attach both ends of the wire to the bat, I found it easier and more asthetically appealing to the eye to bend each end at a 90 degree angle and push into 1-inch deep predrilled holes.
-A vise or second person to hold the bat is recommended when you wrap the barbed wire. It will recoil, thus, the good leather gloves to keep your hands puncture free.
-Hold wire tight, cut excess off, bend at 90 degree angle, shove 1 inch into hole.

Thanks for checking out my first attempt at a prop replica ever. ENJOY!

 

Good luck with your Lucille and thank you for the kind words!

Yes. Securing the wire to the bat was the hard part. I almost used huge, ugly lugs... I'm glad I opted for the holes instead. The double-twisted 14 guage wire is big enough to retain it's regidity and keep from pulling out of the holes on either end. Of course you have to pull it REALLY tight, thus scratching the heck out of the bat, to get it tight enough to put the "L"-shaped bend in that last inch of wire and get it in the hole. Also, you'll want to overlap the wire in a couple spots as you wrap it otherwise it'll naturally conform to a spring shape around the bat.

Oh, another perk of the DIY wire is that you can space your barbs closer together. I went with 4.5 to 5 inch spacing as apposed to the more prototypical 7.5 or 8.5 inches.