I’ve been wanting to try using a bat system in my wheel thrown pottery making process, but I’ve always been a bit put off by the price of those commercial systems.
Recently, I came across a few videos on Instagram of people using cheap 6-inch ceramic tiles as the inserts in their bat systems, which does help drive down the overall cost a bit, but what if we take it one step further and DIY the bat holder itself as well?
For context, a pottery bat system consists of a bat holder, which attaches to the wheel head using 2 bolts inserted into the pre-drilled holes and secured with 2 wing nuts. The holder has a cutout in the middle where compatible bats can be inserted. This allows for easy bat replacement and storage and can significantly speed up the throwing process.
My bat holder model is compatible with wheels with pre-drilled holes that are 10 inches apart. The wheel I am using is the Shimpo VL Whisper for reference.
For this tutorial, you will need:
- A 3D printer with a print bed that’s larger than 11.22”
- 6” square bat inserts
- Bat pins
Materials
I purchased these 6x6-inch square ceramic tiles from Home Depot for 1.04 CAD each. I also bought 1” long, 1/4”-20 bolts for 0.86 CAD and brass wing nuts for 1.47 CAD each.
In total, this trip to the hardware store cost 7.55 CAD.
3D Printing
The bat holder has a diameter of 11.22 inches (285 mm), so you will need a printer that can support this size. You can find the bat holder STL file here. Simply slice it using your slicer of choice and send it to your printer.
Future work
I am toying with the idea of designing a trimming chuck that can be inserted into the bat holder. I am also thinking about re-designing the holder so that it can be printed in multiple parts that can snap together like a puzzle. This way, smaller printers (which are more common) can be used to print it. Feel free to let me know if you have any other ideas for improvements!
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