Ellen and Tom on thu 18 aug 11
I've posted this before but there seems to be a new
crop of potters concerned with bats.
I have nothing against plaster in the studio, other than
that it is heavy and bulky to work with or store. It is
possible to be careful with it, and it works well to cast
odd shaped forms to make repeat slab or handbuilt pieces.
I was one of those students in throwing classes who could
never find bats to work on. We always had
a few older students working late into the night who used all the
bats making work to sell at local art festivals. The
instructor would do nothing about it, except to tell me to
bring my own bats, and he suggested I make
them out of tarpaper. Sounds silly, I know, but I did make
my own, in various sizes to work with mugs, vases, plates,
casseroles, etc. I kept them in my locker and have used
them in my own studio for the past 50 years.
I do not have a slop catcher on my wheels. As I throw I
wipe up the slop and seldom get much thrown onto my
jeans. My wheel head has two holes in it for drop in pins.
Most of he time I work on the bare wheel head, with no
pins, and I simply attach an appropriately sized tar paper
bat to the wheel head with a smear of clay. To remove the
piece, I cut it loose between the tar paper and the wheel head,
and set it off onto a board with a large cement trowel. This
works for mugs, soup bowls, etc.
Large pieces, such as pie plates or bigger bowls, I first put
in the bat pins, then a 12 or 18 inch fiber board bat, smear
that with clay and attach a larger tar paper bat. These I
remove from the wheel by cutting them loose between tar
paper and bat, and using needle nose pliers, pull the bat
and piece onto a board held next to the wheel.
Advantages: Even tho I can pick up a thrown piece and move
it without a bat, if I have done any decoration on it on the wheel,
I am likely to mess that up when I lift the pot. I do a lot of bowls
and mugs with impressed textures on the outside just before
finishing up the inside. I can fit more pieces onto a ware board
using various sizes of bats than I can if I were to throw everything
on a wheel head sized bat. When they are set up enough to turn
over, simply pick up the smaller ones, turn, and pull off the tar paper
bat. It bends, but leaves a perfectly flat bottom. (Sorry - no=3D20
throwing
rings on the bottoms of your work if that is important to you.)
Casseroles, etc, are turned by laying a second fiberboard bat on top,
flipping the whole thing, and removing the tarpaper and first fiberboard
bat.
You can stack 75 tarpaper bats for mugs and soup bowls in a four inch
high by 6 inch space. All of my bats are on one short shelf right next
to my wheel. I use l5 lb. tar paper (building paper), which comes
in an l8 inch wide roll and one roll will last forever. Some of my=3D20
bats are
older than my grandchildren! When I take them off the thrown pots, I=3D20
always
scrape both sides slightly with a scraper (the kind you use in bread=3D20
making).
This helps to keep them flat and non-wrinkled. Once in awhile your cut=3D2=
0
off
wire will tear an edge and if it gets too bad you may want to discard=3D20
that
one.
Believe me, as you get older you will appreciate the lighter weight
of working without heavy plaster bats and being able to use your
space more efficiently.
Ellen Currans
Dundee, Oregon
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