=?iso-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7oise?= Melville on sat 23 oct 99
It's not really a matter of forgetting bats for me. Until I subscribed to
Clayart a few years ago, I had no idea that a bat could be something other
than a flying creature or something used for playing ball games. Anyway,
two or three years ago I bought eight CI plastibats with one much-maligned
oval hole and one round one apiece. I use them exlusively for platters.
Old habits die hard and I find it so much easier to throw fairly dry, and
then, with more or less clean dry hands, lift the mug, bowl, vase or
whatever from the wheelhead of my Pacifica. As for 'potlifters', I'd
never heard of those until I found myself giving evening classes at our
local Community Centre two years ago, and one of my students with previous
experience asked for some to remove her somewhat mushy creation from the
wheel. I hunted round the ceramics room and eventually found some for
her. Never used them myself.
Honestly, I can't see why one should bother to throw mugs and bowls on bats
unless the bowls are really sink-size. If the clay is not soggy, it is so
much easier to just lift them off and place them on a shelf. I don't have
much space and things on bats would waste more than I can afford to lose.
I do not find that anything gets distorted from doing this, but maybe this
is because I throw with as little liquid as possible.
By the way, I just place those plastibats on my batpins when I throw
platters and have never had a any kind of problem with them.
Francoise
Indalo Pottery
http://indalopottery.tripod.com
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