So the next shape that we're going to be talking about is plate. But before we talk about plates, we should take a moment and talk about bats. And we'll revisit this conversation later on, we start talking about larger forms. But it is important that you throw your plates on a bat if you haven't been using them already. Because plates have such a large surface area, they're difficult to pick up and remove off of the wheel head or slide off of the wheel head. So it is important to use a bat that you can pick them up.

And this is extremely important now that we're starting to work on larger forms and forms like place because clay has what is called a molecular memory. And that means if say you're picking up that plate or that bowl off of here and you bend it ever so slightly or slightly taco it. So let's say I'm picking this bowl here. up off of the wheel head and I bend it, I set it over my whiteboard, okay, I can straighten it back out. But now that those clay platelets have been altered, that molecular memory will come into effect during the firing and there's a good chance once you pull this piece out of the glaze firing or potentially even the bisque is going to have a slightly topcoder slightly altered shape to it. And that is very common, and that happens from the mishandling of wares early on during the forming process like this.

And again, plates are gonna be covering a large surface area so it's almost impossible to pick them up and say it is impossible to pick them up and remove them off without distorting the shape. So you're going to need to use a bat. Now there are numbers of different kinds of bats from homemade to commercial. We have two commercial bats here that work great. Just num kind of different brands that we use here. Or what I use in my studio often is is a homemade bat.

And there's a number of different styles that you can use or make at home. You can make bats out of plaster which often is a choice of a production Potter and they have a little locking mechanism that sits on the wheel production potters like them because plaster absorbs the moisture they can pop them off the bat sooner trim them and it can speed up production. Downside plaster bats is that they're thick so they take up more space and they are heavy so it's a little bit hard on the back to constantly moving them back and forth. Double compressed hardwood makes a nice bat something like this smooth on each sides. You can buy a commercial bat uses a template cut these out and make your own bass pretty inexpensively. This stuff is pretty cheap.

You can get it at you know Home Depot, Lowe's anywhere around. The downside to this material is that it is somewhat flexible. So if you're working on a large piece, it is not ideal. And also it is still absorbent. So if you're working on a large piece again that you're going to want to take off and on and put back on the wheel repeatedly to come back and work on it. This may not be the ideal choice because it could pop off.

That brings us to fees. This type of bad here would be one of my preferred choices. This is what I use in the studio. And it is a cut out from a counter where you can get st cutouts, cut them round, drill your holes. Now they are wider so they take up a little bit more space, but if you're working on a large sectional or a large platter, they're not going to band they're not going to distort your shapes as you're moving them around. And they have this Formica top so they're not going to absorb the moisture.

So whatever you're working on, is going to stay adhere to the surface. Now depending on your style of work again, this may not be ideal for you if you're looking for quick turnover where you can pop pieces off the bat, you're gonna want a material that's going to absorb moisture out of the bottom of the piece. So before I mentioned one of my preferred bats are the homemade bats here out of these cutout countertops. You can also find these if you know some that works in construction from sink cutouts, and you can cut them out yourself and in draw your own bat holes. But I should mention if you aren't making new your own bats, something to watch out for and to avoid is particle particle board does not take the water well, this one is still holding together amazingly, somewhat, but you can see how easily that particle board just falls apart because it does not take that water.

And imagine the spinning around there's water you can easily get splinters these chunks end up in your pieces. It's very messy, and it could like I said, the splinters could end up in your hand and be somewhat painful. So watch out for particleboard it is not take the water well. Double compressed hardwood, much better and thinner. All of these so far can easily be used with the use of bad pins which are right here that are attached to our wheel head and the bats simply attached on top of there. We throw our wares, we pick up the bat and remove it aside.

Now you may find that sometimes these bad pins maybe get a little wrung out and you'd especially on your homemade bass. You can see this to counter that until you have a chance to read drill. The holes which you can simply read drill them in another location. But to counter that in a pinch, you can take a small piece of clay, three piece sized pieces of clay and a tripod around the bat pins. Do not collect clay on top of the bat pins because that's going to create a wobble within your bat and cause your pieces to have a wobble. This tripod here will be enough to suction cup your bat down on top of the wheel head.

Now if you do not have bat pins or you want to work with a smaller bat something like this, which this is a great size, especially if you're doing say a series of cups were small bowls because they're lightweight, they don't take up a lot of space on your shelf or your table but they don't have the bat pins for quickly securing them to the wheel head. Okay, so sometimes you may come across the bat that doesn't have those bat pins on it or if your bat pin holes or a smaller size bat like this which can be a real space saver within the studio. Well simply all you do is take a small piece of Clay throw a flat pancake with it. And essentially what we're making here is a suction cup. So our flat disc level it out get a few rings into it like so.

Little bit of water bat and that will be enough to secure this bat into place and from here you can continue to throw, throw your best ball, throw your cup, come in with your butter knife, break the seal, remove the bat, place the next bat on there and continue working. This also works with larger size bats by simply making a larger size pancake planning that out Again, cut a few circles in there. A little bit of water, placed your bat on top. It's like tap in the center and you're ready to work. You can continue to throw your vessels at this point. Just ignore that the bat may be a little bit off center that just comes with the territory by attaching the baton this way.

There you that you're still going to be working in will still be perfectly centered and you can continue reforming process. Okay, now that you have your bat properly secured to the wellhead, let's move on and throw some plates