Throwing left, right and seldom center!

Take some slightly stiff clay and put it on the pins that stick up. Line up the bat holes and push down. Let the clay ooze out and fill up the hole. This will usually steady the bat just fine.

If you don't like that method and prefer to work directly on the wheel head. Make sure that you undercut your pot a bit before you cut it off and clean off the crud from the wheel head. Then use your wire to cut off the pot and quickly dry your fingers on whatever is handy. Make a V with the two fingers closest to the thumb on both hands. With your palm facing up insert the V under the pot in the undercut and twist and lift to place on a nearby board. This takes a little practice and should be done quickly after the cut is made with the wire tool. Obviously this will not work with wide bottom pieces like plate, or large bowls.

Hope this helps>

Cea

Hi Celeste! Thank you for your quick reply!

I knew someone out there would have a good "trick"!!! I will try that - and, if it works, I will buy myself some more bats! :-D

I don't get how I can have my palms up without totally twisting my arms around. Do you mean palm down???

This method would mean that I would have to leave a higher base than I usually would, right? - in order to get my fingers around it, I mean.

Yes, it does! I will try the clay-trick first. Thank you!

Marianne

Nope, palms up! This isn't hard you are just looking at it wrong or, more likely I'm not explaining it well. Make a Churchill V. Rotate your wrists so the thumbs face you. Let your thumbs move to the sides, then drop the back of your hands down to the wheel. Spread the two V fingers apart on both hands put under the pot twist and lift.

Not a whole lot, you will be lifting with the finger tips mostly. But it doesn't really matter if the other method works for you.

Have fun!

Cea

instead of the "Churchill V" consider the "Mr. Spock Vulcan Greeting" with your hands.

the key is a dry pair of hands & a well trimmed pot & clean wheel head.

also, if you lay down clay on the wheel head & apply the bat to the wheel head it should stick better. you could even stick a bat to the wheel head with no pins, just the bat patty of clay.

see ya

steve

Bubbles

It's many years since I did any throwing and I have never seen this 'screw' method for steadying bats - I used a ring of clay with no other mechanical retention.

I have done a bit of Google searching and this is what I understand from the descriptions;

There are holes drilled through the wheel, into which are screwed cap-screws (round-headed bolts with a hex). The bats have holes drilled through them that correspond with the heads of cap-screws. When the bat is placed on the wheel the screws stabilise the bat.

If this is all correct and the holes in your bats are now oversize, then the solution seems obvious. Drill new, correct size, holes in the bats.

It may be difficult for someone without good machine-shop skills to precisely position the holes (seems like 10" centres are standard). If the bats are standard, off the shelf items, then it may be worthwhile buying one new bat and using its holes as guides for drilling the old bats. Just be sure to firmly clamp the two bats together prior to drilling.

If this is a regularly occurring problem, then it is probably worth not using the new bat for throwing and just keeping it for drilling more holes in the future.

Of course, I may be totally misunderstanding the situation, in which case just ignore everything that I have written.

Ken

Hehe!

The thing is that all holes will sooner or later become too big, since the edges of the screws will kind of file the holes every time you put the bat on the wheel - so I would go through a lot of bats if I didn't find a sollution to the loose bat problem.

I have tried sticking the bat on the wheel with clay, and maybe that is a better sollution than the rest - simply forget the screws altogether. I have some descriptions of the method in my books, so I will look into that as well.

I think throwing on bats is the best bet, since I then don't have to "destabilize" the pot before it is properly leather hard. Though I will also try out Steve and Celeste's methods too, just to see what works best.

And - hey! This group is SO GREAT! Thanks for all the helpful responses!

Marianne (aka Bubbles)

As an addendum to that; I have used the *Double Vee* technique for a long time, born of working on a treadle wheel and disliking having to stop every time a pot had to come off. I clean up the base of the pot with a wooden knife, and with the wheel still turning wire it off, dry my fingers (apron), slow the wheel right down, and while it is still moving slowly pick the pot up, left fingers fractionally in advance of the right. The dry fingers grip the base WITHOUT any pressure distorting it and the piece peals off easily. This is a technique well worth practising as it frees you up a lot.

Steve Bath UK

In article , steve snipped-for-privacy@aol.com writes

another comment from a friend of mine. i mentioned my "bats were worn out" and wobbly to him once.

he said, "change your bat pin heads first".

i did & suddenly the bats were a lot snugger again!

when i looked at the pin heads i was STUNNED at how worn down the were! you'd think that metal against wood would have the wood holes wear on the bats first. ~ but after some 18 years of throwing with that wheel, the pin heads DID wear out!

see ya

steve

Two things to try

1. Use a clay bat ring instead of the pins Take about 1/2 pound of wedged clay & center it on the wheelhead. Open it to the wheeelhead and slowly make a ring about 1/2 inch wide that is slightly smaller than the diameter of yur bat. Pinch the clay between you fingers and thumb holding your thumb steady and let the clay go up. Then, press down on the clay, holding the inside of the ring steady to let the clay move out from the senter of the wheel. Just repeat this a few times until you get the ring the size you want. It should be about 3/8 inch high when you're done. Place a dry bat on the ring, tap it in the center a few times & you're goo d to go.

1. Batgrabber You can buy a batgrabber at
   formatting link
   that is placed under your bat. It's a rubber-ish material that will hold the bat from moving . It also seems to do a great job of helping with warped bats as well.

Good Luck!

No much to complicated, like Celeste recommended just pad it out with some fairly stiff clay. Works a treat for me. I use bats all the time, I hate working directly on the wheel head.

I second using a Batgrabber, we've tried them out and think they're excellent. I've used them on the wheelhead without pins, and provided you back off on the muscle power a bit they work really well.

Steve Bath UK

In article , gmccord writes

I bet you bought your's from Bath Pottery Supplies! :-)

I have just sent them an e-mail asking how much they would charge to send a pair to me here in Zurich. Would be fun to try!

Marianne

But why are they nearly double the price here in the UK ??

Bubbles

You *won't* go through lots of bats. You may drill many holes, but a bat can have quite a few holes in it before you need to discard it.

The only reason for buying the new bat is to act as a template for you to drill (or have someone else drill) new holes in your old bats.

When you say that "sooner or later" the new holes will become too big, exactly what time frame do you have in mind? If you have to drill new holes every six or twelve months, that is hardly a problem. Given the time it takes for the pot to dry to leather hard, at which stage you can 'release' the bat back into use, I can't imagine that you would have to drill too many holes.

As Steve mentioned, it is also probably worthwhile getting new screws, assuming you can get the old ones out without too much trouble.

Ken Lipworth

Too complicated???

If Bubbles gave me her two old bats and new bat, I'd have the four new holes drilled in the old bats in under 60 seconds!!

How complicated is it to drill two holes?

Ken

You have to make sure that they are the right size, placed in exactly the right spot, you have to have your drill and your drill bits handy. Clay is just there, it takes 10 seconds, I use a little clay around pins to secure batts all the time whether they are loose or not, last thing you want is a batt flying off. :o)

In article , Jack Ouzzi writes

It costs a reasonable amount of money to import stuff from the USA, to which Import Duty is always added! Dealer's discounts help, but any profit margin also has to take into account the fluctuating values of the currencies involved. It is very easy to *catch a cold*!

Ooooh Eck, Thanks Steve !!

Well, I decided to try to stick the bat on the wheel - and with the help of my cheapo tile-glue thingy, I managed to make very even ridges that the bat stuck nicely to. I did about 5 balls of clay, but ended up with only one bowl. A couple, I was too impatient, so they weren't centered and one, my hands must have been too dry, so it ended up ripping up at the base. Should I paint over that black spot in the ceiling over where it happened? ;-)

Am also starting to get the hang of that picup technique - tried it out on a couple of bowls today.

Thanks for all the gre tips, guys!

Marianne