Pyewackette

The bumper jack plans were published in Ceramics Monthly in 1976, and reprinted in Pottery Making Illustrated in 1999. I have both those on disk but I can't find the CDs. I had printed out the plans and can't find those either. You used to be able to find them on the internet but I sure can't find them anymore. I've decided of late that I do, after all, have some use for an extruder - but now I can't find the plans anywhere, LOL! I'm actually not sure I can find a bumper jack any more either, they don't seem to be a thing any more.

I would have told myself I had less time than I thought and not to wait for "permission" - also to find a doctor who would start treating my Addison's disease IMMEDIATELY and not 40 years later, LOL!

ALL my tools are essential! ALL of them I say! I have the angle grinder, the dremel tool, the Opti-visor. I have a bullseye level - which runs $3 or $4 at a hardware store but I saw on either Amazon or some pottery supply place for $15 !!!! I have a dent puller for dipping stuff in glaze, but a lot of my stuff is too small for it to be useful. And you have to wax the bottom for it to work. I use a mister from Sally Beauty - works way better than any other sort I've seen. I picked up a similar mister in the studio and started pumping away and was immediately admonished that if I used it that way I would break it. Well I've had these for years, I pump away with them for whatever task they are currently set to, and I've never broken one. They're also cheaper than the ones I've seen on Amazon and elsewhere. That's the one I currently have (several actually, I use them to mist plants, pots, and sometimes even my hair) in purple, black and white. They now have a larger one - 24 oz instead of 10 oz - which I am going to try and see if its as durable/useful. I made a long reach sponge from a chopstick and a small section of sponge cut from a big tile sponge (Armaly Pro Plus Mortar and Grouting sponge). I also cut my regular sponges from the big one. I used an upholstery awl to poke a hole in the folded over edge of a strip of chamois, then I made a chamois float by screwing the chamois to a cork through the poked hole and a washer to make sure the chamois didn't tear out around the screw. I have a cheapie Dollar Tree desk organizer I use to hold my trim tools and ribs - I cut out the front of it so my ribs are more reachable, otherwise they fall down into the bottom and I can't see to grab the one I want. Mine is turquoise, my store didn't have those colors and it was in the office supply section, not the craft section. I have this toolbox from Harbor Freight that holds my most often used tools. Keep in mind I have to schlep from home to either of two studios. This is lightweight and fits perfectly in one end of a Sterilite crate, which I use to corral my tools and accoutrements when schlepping. I'd post a few pics of how I've got that organized but its in the trunk of my son's car (he lets me drive it nearly all the time because he rarely needs it) and he has the car today. Imagine that, he wanted his own car for the day LOL! A reusable grocery bag from Dollar Tree fits PERFECTLY in the other end of the crate and holds all my other tools in their containers. I schlep my crates on this foldable cart from Harbor Freight. The crates don't fit inside the edges and the edges are slippery so I am getting some stair tape (the gritty stuff) to fix that. The sterilite crates are wide enough to fit my bats in. I use pool noodles (pipe insulation also works) as rim protectors for bats in the crate. I can't stack either of my 2 current crates because the tool box needs one crate and it sticks up too high, and the bats go in another crate and they ALSO stick up too high. So I'm getting another crate which I will cut in half, slide the top into the bottom, cutout the bottom, and stack/zip tie it to my bat crate to make a deeper crate that I can now stack the other crate on top of. Then I have room for a heavy duty milk crate with my clay and reclaim buckets in it (I have to schlep them as well). I'm using 1 gallon buckets with lids from Home Depot when schleppage of reclaim is required. This works way better than what I was doing before, I don't need a bunch of bungie cords to try to tie my stuff onto a regular hand dolly and I can just lift the crates off, fold the cart and stick it in the trunk, and the crates just go in there with it. Fancy wheeled tool dollies don't work because they stick up too high to go in my trunk (plus they require major spendage). The hand dolly folded, but I had to take the crates off to fold it ALL the way up (and messing with the bungies was a major pain) because even with the handle down it, too, was too tall to fit in the trunk with the stuff still on it. I have various snap-closure boxes for whatever tools aren't in the yellow tool box, some from Dollar Tree and a few Sterilite items. I have a pencil box with my ribs in it now, before I had most of my tools in various plastic food containers that were a pain to get open and closed. My bigger ribs (bowl ribs too wide for the pencil box) are in a sterilite snap closure container. And on like that. Oh, and this is my favorite usage of a non-pottery item for pottery storage: See those weird gumdrop shaped bags in front? Apparently you're supposed to put bras in them. I don't. I use regular flat bags or the drum shaped ones if they came with a laundry bag assortment. I got some of those gumdrop shaped bags in an assortment and they sat around unused - until I decided they were perfect for schlepping my sponges and chamois thingies so they could dry and not mold (yup, plastic food containers or any other sort of plastic box were not cutting it for my wet stuff). Keeps them together, unlost, and unmildewed. I have one set for dark clays and one for light. And I use a yoga mat bag (that was too small for any yoga mat I actually owned after I washed it) to schlep my towels, the sponge bags, and whatever other odds and ends I feel like sticking in there. Easily slings over my shoulder, and my spray bottle from Sally Beauty fits in there as well. Makes it easier for me when I have to remember what has to go inside so it doesn't freeze in the car - and that would be the clay/reclaim crate and the yoga mat sling. I made an anti-bat-chatter thingy from that waffle-texture shelf liner. Also in the car so no pic. I made a "bat mate" from fake chamois for washing cars, to see if its any help when trimming as some people say the real bat mates are. Also it works by a different mechanism from the waffle-texture shelf liner one - that one you don't wet, it just helps reduce chatter/jitter by providing a bit of padding under those crappy speedball plastic bats. If you wet the fake chamois it provides a bit of suction (under bats with a solid bottom, not the speedballs), helps to stabilize when the bat pin holes are a little worn or if the bat is just slightly warped. I don't think anything will help if a bat is badly warped. Haven't had a chance to try it yet. I'm about to make several sticky bats using Harbor Freight tool box liner, neoprene, and whatever other likely substances I can find to try. Cut out a circle and glue it to the top of the bat for trimming. The Diamond Core ones are crazy expensive ($72/12", $82 for 14"!!!). I could buy a baltic birch bat for less than that, DC has just glued their sticky stuff to the top of a plastic Speedball bat. I find foam bats generally won't hold the piece evenly, one side or the other can sink too deep. I do like them for drying platters/plates bottom up - the foam helps keep the rim from distorting. I have a sheet of foam SOMEWHERE and hope to make an extra large foam bat for that purpose. Someday I hope to try the magnetic glaze dipping solution, but I keep waffling about whether or not I've found the right sort of neodymium magnets. OH and I'm going to get my brother to make one of these (I hope): The tongs on the right are made from regular tongs like on the left. My brother is a machinist, I'm pretty sure he can do this for me. The tongs on the right grip a pot from the inside, very helpful when dipping the outside of mugs and the like. I'm also going to ask him to make me a triangular trimmer like this: AND some steel banding strap chatter tools. Which reminds me of another non-pottery tool that I have, the magnetic knife strip. Perfect for hanging up your tongs, metal spatulas, and anything else with enough steel to stick to the magnet.

I already have a digital scale, they're not that expensive. I have several actually but I got this one just for weighing out glaze stuff. American Weigh Scales L-3000 - I paid $38, currently on sale for $36. Highly highly rated in the baking community, and some of us there are pretty an... err, focused on ... the accuracy of our scales. $150 doesn't begin to touch how much I am getting ready to spend on tools. Bats, for instance. I'm spending more than that on just bats. I only have 4 atm. But then I'm just getting started (for realzies this time).

@GEP 10 years on, how is the flooring in your studio holding up? Studio redesign at Good Elephant Pottery Also what is that stuff and where did you find it? Is it this kind of stuff?

I used to have a Shimpo stool but apparently it got lost in the last move. They have Shimpo stools at the big studio where I go, and just folding chairs and wood stools at the city studio. I think the Shimpo stools are stupidly over priced for what they are, the seats routinely split and expose the foam padding in nothing flat and they are stupidly difficult to adjust. I have to take a chopstick to push the little buttons in - and then I can only do one side at a time, I have to get another chop stick and try to push them in from either side simultaneously, and as convoluted a contortion as that is, its the ONLY way I can do it at all. $100 for what amounts to a bit of hollow metal with a thin padding on top ($70 on sale) is ridiculous. So I got a mechanics stool that does not roll (or has locking wheels, I've forgotten which and its packed atm) from Costco for around $20 or $30 a few years back. Then when I started working out of the city studio where they have NO chairs or stools really suited to throwing, I got a cheapy stool from the Dollar Tree for $5. That's right - 5 smackaroonies. It's lightweight, easy to schlep around, and if I ever leave it and it disappears I'm only out the 5 smackaroonies. I had priformis syndrome this past summer - the irritation was initiated by sitting for hours on a cheapy "office chair" that had no padding worth the term in front of my computer last winter/spring (another thing that got left in the last move, all my good office chairs). I didn't actually know what it was until I made the mistake of signing up for a class taught by a guy who thinks not telling his students what he's doing is somehow illustrative of something or other. The particular exercise was, WITHOUT TELLING ANYBODY WHAT WAS GOING ON, to have the students play musical chairs and have to work on each other's lumps of clay. I'm not five. Plus I use my OWN bats and other equipment and to have rank beginners throwing water by the cupful on my good medex bats and carry off my personal tools (I permanently lost a rib and one of my sponges) was not much to my liking either. When I DID NOT get up and start moving around the studio right away, he made a pointed remark about people who don't cooperate, and since I hate being the center of attention I ended up getting up and moving around the studio as well. The constant up and down and having to sit on stools that had NOT been adjusted for me and the pain in my a... backside ... irritated the priformis syndrome to the point where I could barely walk. It was 2 months before I could get in to physical therapy and I missed the rest of the class WHICH I HAD PAID FOR and only attended 2 sessions because after that I was back on the cane, schlepping through the grocery in a handicap cart, and barely able to tolerate sitting long enough to drive anywhere. $100 in extra cushions for my chairs at home and 4 months of physical therapy later (still in physical therapy but its a LOT better by now) I'm finally back in the studio. That stuff is no joke. I've considered throwing standing up, but I have no way to brace myself. Michael Wendt has a video showing his standing setup but I don't quite understand how it is set up nor quite how he is bracing himself on it, but if I could figure it out it would probably be a good idea. But really, as long as nobody is making me get up every five minutes and switch to a stool that is at yet another height than the last and isn't set to the angle I've found best for me personally, so far, I'm good with sitting. Sometimes he rests his arm on TOP of that brace, and sometimes he seems to tuck his elbow into it and lean over. Not sure how I would go about setting that up and adjusting that for myself. I do like the laser thingy and the editor of Pottery Illustrated should sit on it and rotate because *I* certainly am interested in how to set that up. He's using cheap lasers from Harbor Freight for that, its not like he's using fancy-dancy lasers costing hundreds of dollars. I think there's a brief discussion of the setup on his website. It would help if his videos had descriptive labels. "DSCN0308' doesn't tell us much (that video illustrates his use of a metal pipe to flatten a large disk, he has a name for that that I can't for the life of me remember but it sure looks useful if you do a lot of platters or thrown bonsai pots). Rod and stand? I think? A more thorough demonstration of that method - he talks about bracing for throwing while standing but you really can't see any of that in the video: Rod and REstand is what he calls it:

I actually just realized - well I realized Sunday morning, I've been playing catch-up with housework today due to spending all the open studio hours at the studio (closed on Mondays) - that ALL the clay bodies I ordered are cone 6, including both the speckled clays. So I should have known. They do say those are good for cone 4 to 6 so I should be ok at cone 6 with those. As of Sunday the Alligator order was not yet in, hoping it will be there when I go in tomorrow afternoon. There should be a couple of cone 10 white stonewares on the studio order, and then the clays I ordered. Looking forward to both. I'm throwing a lot better and a lot faster these days. Still a long ways to go but I can see light at the end of the tunnel, and its not a train for a change LOL! At any rate when I get some cone 10 stoneware I'll see about going big again. That's been a goal, but it seemed out of reach until just the last couple of weeks. @Kelly in AK It's so weird, I was just reading about Isaac Button somewhere or other - or had been just before I read your posting. I've already forgotten what the exact context was but it was in regard to throwing big.

@Min Wow I'm having a hard time figuring out how to pour glaze out of that huge pot. It's about 3' tall (I'll actually measure it when I go to the studio later today, they don't open until 1). I'm pretty sure I'll need help. I'll have to enlist the Studio Manager's help, most likely, I hope he doesn't feel insulted when I don't take his advice re imploding pots. I'm guessing he was being hyperbolic so maybe it'll be ok. But as for it being precious - it's really really not. If someone hadn't asked for it from me for charity it would already be squashed. It looks WAY BETTER than I think I had any right to expect for a first effort and using that clay but it is NOT not not up to my standards for work to be kept. It is more or less ok when you're looking at it but that thing is NOT centered rim to foot. The rim ended up way off center, so far off center I couldn't do a thing to improve that rim because spinning it was a lost cause (and me plus handbuilding, also a lost cause). He had us throw the bottoms and then coil up using handbuilt coils and I obviously failed in a big way to keep the thing centered as I went up. I think I'll try a "big pot" again (but not that big because the Big Things Class is over and I don't want to tick anybody off being a kiln hog) only this time (or however many throw/squash cycles it takes) I'll do it this guy's way: That thing is over 3 hours long but if you go to 34:00 ish you'll see where he is torching the thrown base, taking some measurements, and then adding a big fat EXTRUDED coil AND THEN sort of "throwing it in". I think I can do that! And end up with something much less off center and better looking. The pot as she exists has many many flaws, even if you ignore it not being centered rim over foot. For one thing when I threw the base I envisioned a much much smaller big pot of the moon jar variety. He egged me on repeatedly to make it bigger so the foot ended up much much smaller than I think it ought to be for a pot that tall, and there is some oddness that I covered up with trimming and slip where I had started to bring the shoulders in at what ended up being about a third of its final height. Pretty sure the walls are of widely varying thickness as well. I mean really. Not precious. I think I'll just ask his permission to make another big but not quite so big pot and squash that one anyway. The charity thing isn't until April so there's plenty of time, I have no use for Big Things myself so I can just make another to give away. Plus throwing it in my own clay has got to be easier now that we have Real Clay available. What do you think of a manganese speckled clay like Peppered Creole in soda firing? I don't have that clay yet but I hope to have it very soon, maybe as soon as this afternoon if the shipment arrived as expected.

@Kelly in AK Those are some really nice pieces! At this point I think I'm just going to spray the whole inside and the rim/neck on the outside with a glaze and use the flashing slip over the rest. That's assuming they get a compressor for the sprayer. He says to spray the flashing slip at bone dry and its going to be awhile before that thing is bone dry LOL! @Min He very well may be oversimplifying, and/or I am probably misunderstanding and misrepresenting. I'm just trying to assimilate the flood of information!

I've tried underglaze, then coated on top with a clear. Totally hid the chatter marks. Well maybe not TOTALLY, but it just looks weirdly uneven. I didn't wipe - Hsin Chuen Lin doesn't wipe, but then he's Hsin Chuen Lin and he's not stuck using whatever ancient underglaze you can find that you have to reconstitute from a hockey puck once you do find it. Also he remembers to put the underglaze on first, THEN chatter. *sigh* Really I didn't wipe because the studio clay body is so ugly and I was hoping the underglaze wouldn't melt enough to fill in the low spots, but with the clear on top it did. The celadons have typically shown the chatter marks, but the studio clay body is REALLY ugly when fired, sort of a greeny-yellowy-gray, like zombie skin. Light zombie skin at cone 6 and dark zombie skin at cone 10R. Looks awful under green or blue celadon, I'm trying amber celadon as we speak, but shortly that won't be an issue any more given I now have the option of not-studio clay. Honestly I don't think the celadons look very good on anything that isn't pretty white, but I HAVE PORCELAIN now so that might help. I couldn't figure out why it looks ok on the test tiles, then I realized - they weren't on the studio stoneware. They were on the studio B-mix. And not noted as such. That is at the city studio, not the one I usually go to. We don't have any test tiles to speak of at the main studio because they threw them all out and are making new in the course of getting rid of/replacing some of the old glazes and clay bodies. Thing is, they don't even buy the B-mix for students at the city studio, just the studio stoneware body. So why all their test tiles are on B-mix is a question for the ages. I've read about borax or TSP washes on here and would like to try those, partly for purposes like this but partly just because its a tactile thing with me - when the clay body DOESN'T look like zombie skin, I like for it to be partially exposed or rather FEATURED as part of the design, but I don't like the rough texture. For instance right now I have a sake jar that is finely textured on the top half, I would like to do as you say, put on some glaze and wipe it off, but then I DON'T want to coat it with the clear because it is very glossy (we don't have a matte clear) and also seems to make an underglaze melt, who knows what it would do to an already melty glaze. At least that is what looks like happened the one time I tried it over underglaze. It didn't help that that underglaze also turned out to be an eye-searing orange. I mean I want some color on my pieces but I don't want to be burning out retinas. Most of the underglazes in the studio were purchased for hand builders with, shall we say, a different aesthetic. They're pretty bright. Although I had one go black on me - also not desirable, it was supposed to be a sort of tan. So I was thinking maybe a pigmented wash using Mason stain or whatever would not either turn black or disappear (iron oxide disappears under many clear glazes, I don't know if that's a zinc thing or a CaO thing per digitalfire), wipe, overcoat with one of those borax or TSP type washes, and I might get both the hint of color in the grooves, keep the texture visible, "feature" the clay on the high points, and still have a nice smooth satiny texture when you pick it up. Of course I don't know how to make any of those washes LOL!

@Min Well thank you, I feel much less weird now knowing that an accomplished potter such as yourself has actually gone the multi-kinds of flashing slip route. I think his issue is that he thinks the flashing slips we have will be indiscernible from one another after firing, but then why do we have 3 or 4 slips that end up all looking the same, I ask. I'm good with subtle differences, and if they actually DO all come out the same, where's the loss. I actually would like it to get runny and yeah, there's plenty of room for it to run. Don't want to glaze the whole thing because I don't want to lose all the texture. Nearly all my textured pieces ended up with glazes that hide the texture. I always wet my pots and I literally dunk in and right back out, no 3 second holds here. I wait for the first dip to be pretty dry and usually do a second dip if the first looks kinda thin. Not having my textures disappear under the glaze has been an ongoing struggle.

The studio manager where I work has said that you cannot partially glaze a pot, say, by glazing the inside only, or the pot will implode- literally implode. He says it will pull the clay inwards and cause it to actually break. If the glaze shrinks more/faster than the clay wouldn't it just crackle, and wouldn't that actually be a glaze defect? If it shrinks slower, wouldn't it shiver off and then again be a glaze defect? I know compression between inner and outer glaze on the clay body is an actual thing but ... actual breakage doesn't seem reasonable to me with any glaze allegedly formulated to fit the clay body in question, which is supposedly what we have. I ask in relation to this pot: It's around 3' tall (I will measure it next I'm in the studio) and was textured with slip added after trimming. I plan to use flashing slip on the body. I would like to use several different slips to get slightly different effects, he seems to think that's silly because he seems to thinks most flashing slips end up looking the same (I may have misunderstood his reasoning but he does seem to think its a waste of time and effort). But I would like to glaze the neck and rim and inner rim with either Patrick's yellow or Autumn yellow, both of which turn sort of brown to tannish brown or very slightly orangey brown in cone 10 reduction. Partly because soda firing just doesn't seem to work very well on the insides. I plan to spray on both glaze and flashing slip(s). I would spray the flashing slip(s) onto the bone dry work and then the glaze after bisque fire. So if I glaze only the top inside and out is my piece likely to implode or otherwise do something bad because I didn't actually glaze the whole thing?

@Hulk Hence ... ?

That's right, rub it in!

So is 3 weeks good enough for a "good long test run"? Currently I have one, count it, ONE, Hydrobat that I intend to use for platters/bonsai pots (so they pop off nice and neat). I'm about to buy a couple of the Northstar pottery bat system thingies with the inserts (a couple because dark clay and white clay/porcelain shouldn't mix) and some 12" Medex bats. But I've always sort of hankered after some sort of Hardiebacker based bat, just couldn't see a way to get around the abrasiveness.

@MinI had seen you mention that in an older thread but you hadn't named it. I was thinking I'd have to do a Google image search LOL! I'm finding so many different items for stirring stuff, including a cheaper look-alike for the Jiffler on Home Depot. I'll list them all here but I'm looking to get that Hyde Stir Whip as it looks like the safest bet LOL! Allway Helix Paint Mixer 5 gal $9 HYDE 43430 5 Gallon Drill Attachment Paint Mixer $13.43 "Generic" Paint Mixer Very different look to this one $15.39 5 gal "Squirrel" mixer $12.14 The name alone warrants a look Jiffler type mixer #1 5gal $27.88 Jiffler type mixer #2 1 gal $9.31 Jiffler type mixer #2 5 gal $26.00 All the types available at Sheffield There's way more out there than I thought!

Aaand here is one result from my Throwing Big class. Its not actually as uneven as it looks, I've discovered my cell phone camera tends to distort things if they're not just exactly head on and centered. That thing is somewhere between 2.5' and 3' tall LOL! I am disappointed in the rim. I just couldn't find any way to get the nice rolled thick rim like I had on the vase-like object above. This was accomplished by throwing about the bottom 1/3rd and then coiling up. I'm hoping to put it in the next soda firing with some version of sprayed-on washes like iron and cobalt with some flux material to make them satiny but still show the texture. Actual glaze would just hide the texture (and celadons are not an option because this is the old studio clay and it looks really crappy under a celadon). I slapped on a lotta slip to do the texturing.

So the Studio Manager where I've been working decided to go to bagged clay for most things, which means the studio clay I've been struggling with is now reserved to classes and sales to local schools. I picked up a sample (big enough to make a fair sized bowl) of each of the 3 clays he currently has available to us and piggybacked onto his next order for 5 more. The 3 we currently have are from Armadillo, Raku, cone 5 Porcelain, and Balcones Dark. Until my new clay gets here I'll just be working with the porcelain. I THREW PORCELAIN! I threw it thick, granted, but it didn't fall down and die. That rim is a scosh short of 1/4" thick. Yes, I'm squashing it and going to learn to go much much thinner. The Raku is just not very good for throwing as might be expected but I threw with it also. I just realized I failed to take a picture of that, but it wasn't pretty anyway. I turned it into a planter. Who knows if it will survive kiln firing. Unlike the porcelain, it is SUPER thin. If I can get near that with porcelain it'll be a miracle LOL! But here's a pic of a vase-like-object with the studio clay, the cracking is not thanks to sodium silicate, that's just what the clay does. I was going for a spiral effect and that's what I got. The Balcones Dark practically threw itself. The walls are properly thin and even and that bowl at 9" across (and flared out that way) is twice as big as anything I could manage with the studio clay which would just slump and I couldn't pull it out anywhere near even anyway. And here is an experiment with drippy glaze that failed largely because the kiln shut off due to a power failure and then started up again by itself so things got overfired. That is a white glaze with blue celadon over the top. I applied the blue celadon with a spoon to make drips down the side of the outside which I actually failed to take a picture of, I waxed the inside so it wouldn't drip inside but didn't wax all the way down so it dripped past the wax and made dribbles in the bottom half anyway. Then when the kiln re-fired itself, the wax was gone so we got melting celadon from the rim down into the inside of the bowl anyway. But I like the effect, sans the overfiring, so I'll be trying that again. So that's what I've been up to pottery-wise this past month. I spent the whole summer either in my garden or with my grandson. I have bushels of stuff to put up since it frosted 2 days ago. Peas are still going and I didn't make it to the maters and peppers but I've got a ton of edible gourds and squash to put up.

I'm looking at glaze mixers and apparently I have THREE choices. The Jiffler looks niftiest but I wonder if those exposed blades could cut into bucket sides. Also the thing about low speed is concerning as I don't believe I have a drill any more that you can set for high or low speed, you just have to have a light trigger finger. Sometimes mine sort of spasms and revs the drill up for a few seconds. And I have no idea how effective the Turbomixer might be or if it could damage bucket sides as well. Anybody have experience or opinions on these? BTW I've been off gardening, and yes, I just harvested almost the last of the garden day before yesterday. I have BUSHELS - BUSHELS I say. The peas are still on though. My son saw my haul and opined that I should plant LESS next year. Pshaw! I didn't even make it to the maters and peppers before full dark and too cold to pick in the cold cold rain.

@LeeU We called it Wire Wedging in my day, and it was the only way I knew how to wedge until I was met with a blank look by an instructor circa 2010 and told to rams head it or else LOL! It seemed to be a forgotten art until that Michael Wendt video seemed to remind people it had ever existed. Only now it was called Stack 'n Slam.

@graybeard So Graybeard, can you tell me how long your bat pins are? I find myself in the market for longer bat pins for that wheel (it doesn't have any) and I couldn't get a really good measurement this afternoon. The bat pins from the other wheels were too short, that's for sure! I'm guessing somewhere between 1.5" and 1.75"? I'm having trouble finding anything longer than inch and a quarter. I swear I saw some on either Sheffield or Bailey that were longer but I can't find them again.

@Mark C. And where, pray tell, might such a crafts outlet be? Google only returns links for MDF circles ...

Thanks to everyone for helping to solve this mystery. I think he'll be glad to know. He's been using these bats for years without ever knowing where they actually came from. Big box lumber guys have apparently steered him wrong several times LOL! As for me, a couple of days ago I finally found my long lost tools from 12 years ago and at least some of my bats. Sadly only one of my Hydrobats though! I can't remember if I had 3 or 4 of those but at least I found ONE LOL! I got several different bats to see what I liked best and I liked the Hydrostone bats so well I never even tried the others. There was a Duron/Masonite bat, a Wonderbat, a generic MDF bat, and a Hydrostone bat in that group. The Hydrobat worked so well I immediately bought either 2 more for a total of 3 or 3 more for a total of 4. There was a 3 in there somewhere! I love me some Hydrostone and I keep thinking I will buy more and then ... I remember the shipping. Which is more than the bats LOL! So I'm just getting some 12" Duron bats from Sheffield with the free shipping doncha know. In a few months I will be living an hour plus change from both Bailey's and Sheffield, and maybe some other pottery supply places in the area I'm not yet aware of. Then I'll get me some more Hydrostone bats! Woo hoo!

@graybeard Isn't that how you stop it spinning? I mean doesn't everybody stop the spinning before turning it off at the switch?

@neilestrick Its just up on one layer of blocks, not high enough to stand unless someone is even shorter than I am (5' 2" - haven't shrunk yet). It may be high enough for someone to sit on one of the taller wooden stools there though. I couldn't find a reverse switch but I'll look again. Just an on/off switch. I'm pretty sure I was told it wouldn't reverse, that the Amaco is the only one that will reverse without being rewired. It is one of the models with the built in pan. I tried the pedal, it was VERY loose - maybe that's something that's adjustable? Tried to talk to the other instructor about the wheels today. He loves his Shimpo. Period. Paragraph. @Rae Reich I can't imagine throwing standing up. It makes my neck and shoulders hurt just thinking about it. I guess that's one more thing I may have to learn. But the hard plastic folding chairs they are using instead of stools are much too hard on me. I've got some kind of strain trying to shoot its way down my gluteus maximus into my leg from perching on them. I've got a gel cushion I need to remember to take and see if that helps but I'm pretty sure its kaput, I'll have to try to find a new one. Not very gel-y these days, more hard and unyielding. I looked for my Shimpo stool around the house, couldn't find it. That may be just one more thing that got lost in the last move. Not buying another one @$110. The only advantage it had over any other adjustable stool I've been able to find so far is that it didn't weigh much.