A Coven of Bats??

So we were working on some new “artistic” work in the studio last night, and I realized that I only had seven bats.  I don’t usually use bats when I throw functional ware, because it’s usually smaller scale. But when I throw “art” work it tends to be too large to pick up without distorting the form too much.  So today I decided to make some bats of my own and this is how it went…

First I collected the tools I thought I would need to go from start to finish without stopping to find another tool.  I had most of the tool in our studio, but I was missing a jigsaw, which is quite important when cutting out circular shapes.  Luckily I was able to find one at my favorite in-laws house (Thanks Cindy!), so I was set with tools.  Here is a list of tools I started out with: Jigsaw, drill, a nail, hammer, sharpie, drill bit, and an old bat.  I also needed a sheet of four by eight Masonite; to cut the bats out of, so I went and got one of those too (cost about twelve dollars).

After I assembled all that stuff, I started tracing the old bat with the sharpie to see how many bats I would be able to get out of the Masonite.  Here is an overall picture of the Masonite after I traced all my bats, and the next picture is a close up so you can see the circles.  I was able to trace twenty fourteen inch bats, one twelve inch bat, and four eight inch bats.

Next step: Cutting

This step took the longest and made the biggest mess out of all the steps, and it’s not that exciting so we will move on pretty quick.

While I was cutting out the bats, I saw this little bird appear more than once so I thought I would snap a shot of him to share.

Here is a picture of all the bats cut out and ready for the next step.

Next was to get all the holes drilled, and drilled in the right places.  I did this by stacking and clamping them and placing the old bat on top so that I could just drill down through the holes on the old bat.  It was at this point that I realized my drill bit was too small and the next size up was way too big.  So I went ahead and drill the hole, and figured that I would make them bigger (somehow) later.  So now I had a stack of rough cut bats that had holes that were too small to fit on my wheel.  I went through a couple of options to make the holes bigger, first was a rat tail file (didn’t work so well, it was too coarse), second was our dremel with sanding attachment (too big), then a grinding attachment (too fine, just burned the wood), and finally wood cutting router like bit for the dremel.  This last one was the sweet spot, it worked perfectly, so I got on with making the holes bigger.  After that I had to smooth down the edges (so I wouldn’t hurt myself), I did this by putting them on the wheel and holding some rough sand paper to them while the spun at full speed.  I only put holes in the fourteen inch bats, I figured that twenty bats was enough to get me started, I think I will leave the eight inch bats alone, and the twelve inch bat will get holes another day.

 So I ended up with twenty bats for about twelve dollars, I was looking around the internet when I came back inside and saw that I could have just bought them for six dollars a piece.  It would have only run us $120 to buy the same amount I made for twelve dollars...

I mentioned at the beginning that we are working on some “artistic” work, here is a picture of the beginnings of said work.