Pottery Wheel Bats: Essential Accessories for Your Ceramics Studio

Pottery wheel bats are indispensable tools for any ceramics studio, offering a versatile surface for your pottery projects. These flat discs attach directly to your pottery wheel head, allowing for seamless work. Available in various sizes and shapes, pottery wheel bats come in materials like plastic, wood, and plaster, catering to different needs and preferences.

Typically, pottery bats are designed with two holes that align with bat pins on the wheel head, ensuring a secure fit. If you have an older wheel head without bat pin holes, you can easily add them with a drill at 10" on center. Once secured, the bat allows the potter to work directly on it, making it easy to lift the bat (and your work) off the wheel without disturbing your creation.

Why Use Pottery Wheel Bats?

Pottery wheel bats offer several advantages, making them a popular choice among potters. The ability to remove the bat with the thrown pot intact eliminates the need for direct handling, preserving the shape and form of delicate or large pieces. This feature is particularly useful when dealing with larger, more complex forms that are challenging to handle. Additionally, working on a bat helps prevent unwanted reactions between certain clay bodies and the wheel head, such as pitting or oxidation, especially when using aluminum wheel heads. By using pottery wheel bats, you protect both your pottery and your equipment.

Types of Pottery Wheel Bats

• Plastic Bats: Ideal for their resistance to water damage, plastic bats are durable and long-lasting. While they are affordable, one downside is that they may not release clay as easily, even after cutting the pot’s base with a wire. Speedball offers a colorful range of plastic bats in both circular and square shapes. Circular bats are traditional, but square bats are space-saving on your ware shelf. Amaco’s Plasti-bat is another popular choice, available in multiple sizes.
• Wood and Masonite Bats: Made from medex or masonite, these bats are also budget-friendly but have a shorter lifespan due to susceptibility to water damage. The advantage of wood or masonite bats is their absorptive properties, which make it easier to remove the thrown pot from the bat compared to plastic alternatives.

Choosing the right pottery wheel bat for your needs can enhance your pottery experience, ensuring smoother processes and better protection for both your work and equipment.