Bats-

[Min]

 

how thick do you make your plaster bats?

For plaster, I'd suggest at least 1/2" or 5/8". Use a spring-form for making cheese cakes as your mold. Coat the inside with Murphys Oil or similar release agent, sit on a level surface, fill with plaster, tap sides a few times to release air bubbles, and then release the spring on the side of the form to remove the mold. Sounds so easy I need to try it.

 

While your bats are drying, think about how you will store them so they can air dry and not get nicked/chipped.

 

 

This. Plus you need to add a coil of clay around the outside where the ring meets the countertop. For larger batts you can cut the top off a bucket, cut a slit in it and use that instead of the springform. You need to take a rasp to the edges to round them over.

 

If you are going to do production work I would also suggest measuring the water & plaster so the batts are the same thickness, makes it easier to set up a gauge for the height & width of the pots. (I didn't figure that until I had made most of mine)

 

For storing I picked up from a dollar store quite a few wood plate racks, Overnight drying and mine are good to go again.

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[Mark C.]

I pour my bats in pie pans then use an metal straight edge to scrape top edge flat holding it at a 45-then sponge at the right moment as well as trim the edges off after releasing them. Every bat is the same thickness. I use small tins and large ones -I will measure diameters later today and update size info. The small ones I use the most and are a bit harder to find.

You can see these bats in my gallery photos of throwing room.

Mark

 

Small pie tins make a bat 6 1/4 in diameter 1 1/8 thick

largepie tins make bats are 8 3/4 in diameter 1 1/8 inch thick

[Crusty]

We have some straight wall cake pans- 6'' 8'' 10'' 12''  - I think those will be perfect ...

 

Thanks everyone for the help ...

 

 

Thanks for the measurements Mark, I was wondering what size the small ones were.. Pot pies on the menu.

[Mark C.]

I buy them on amazon-at least a dozen at a time for the small ones.There are some out these with wide lips that do not works as well as the ones with small lips.

Mark

[Crusty]

I made a dozen of them this morning, they turned out pretty good.. I finally figured out when to sponge them.. yea, that's a nice finishing technique.. I also took a small green scotch pad to them when I popped em out.. really smoothed the little sponge lines  out fast ...

[hitchmss]

I use three kinds of bats each good for a specific kind of pot. The most common method I use is throwing on a speedball bat and lifting my pots off after I throw them. I do this for almost 85% of the pots I make.

    For forms that I cant pick up without wrecking I like getting a 4x8' sheet of double sided masonite from big box store; have them cut it at 9 1/2" square and you will yield around 45 or more bats from a $10 sheet of wood, most definitely the cheapest option out there for bats($.20 a bat). You do need to take some basic precautions when using masonite bats, even though they are double sided(coated) they still absorb moisture, especially the area under the pots which for me is the first place they begin to fail. I dont care about little pieces of the masonite chipping off and getting into my pots; it will burn out. Once the pot has dried and has been taken off, take a putty knife and scrape excess clay off. Dont store them stacked while wet, or they will hump from moisture. Let dry leaned up against a wall with a little airspace in between. In about two to three years and thousands of uses later they will eventually not sit flat against the wheel head and will slip out of the bat pins so you will need to throw away and spend $10 again. I have maybe 80 of these and they have seen thousands of pots thrown on them so far and are still going strong

   For forms with feet wider than 6" or large bowls I will throw on speedball bats; they are cheaper than plasti-bats, and I think they stay/come flatter. Some are a pain to get off bat pins because the "holes" are snug, but not terrible. I have around 25 plastic style bats.

   Finally for platters and other wide based forms I like to use Hydrobats; you can buy seconds from www.theceramicshop.com (the inventor and maker) which are usually not so beat up or wobble so bad you cant use them. This will save on some cost(shipping can be a pain so visit in Philly for cheap). Even buying firsts, while costly, is a small investment compared to how much you make with them( one $15 bat throws you one $150 pot......). I have (10) of the 12.5", (2) of the 14", and (2) 16", and (1) 36"; I find this is more than enough bats for me to throw all of my platter like forms on for a session of potting. I prefer them over home made plaster bats for a number of reasons. Rubber lined pin holes means no rocking or warping of holes over time. No need to make clay patty to throw on, which either requires you to remove bat pins from wheel head, or throw a very thick slab first which is waste of time and material. Lastly, being made from Hydrocal and not #2 they are much more durable, while still having great moisture absorbency (pots will pop off in a day or less). Ive never thrown down a stiff or large lump of clay onto a hydrobat and broke it into smithereens, however I've destroyed a number of plaster bats this way. Also, they dont chip easily! If I've got the space Ill let them dry unstacked on wire shelf, but if not I can put them away after a use and use them very soon after and they still have good absorbency. In my opinion, they are the best gypsum based bat system out there.

[Mark C.]

I at anyone tine have about 150 small bats and 20 larger ones=thats the plaster side

the blue northstars I keep about 18 13 inch and 13 15 inchers-I also have a stack of 20-12 inch formica toped ones.

I move pots around on large bats which are the large medex ones as well as 18 inch sink cut outs

Mark

[Frankiegirl]

I have been using a bisque tile bat system for a while now and I love it. I have been having issues in production with it lately though. Typically, I wait until the pieces pop off the tiles to trim them. As I am moving into production and have had to forgo the trimmed foot on my production pots. My first go around, I did not cut them from the tile after I threw them and, as you may already be thinking, I had 70 out of 100 pieces with pattern cracking. Lesson learned. I took a new approach, cutting the pieces from the bats to prevent pattern cracking on my now un-trimmed foot.

 

My question is, do I really need to use bisque tiles if I a cutting the pots off the bat anyway or could I save money and just get any tile from a hardware store that would fit into the tile bat system? Would it really make much of a difference in the drying process?

[Mark C.]

If you are cutting them then any bat surface will do.

I like plaster as they can dry without cracking easy.

Mark