One of the major drawbacks of having a pottery studio in a 1951 detached garage is the lack of running water. In the summer, I have an outdoor sink I run with a garden hose, but that's no good in the winter. I needed something that would allow me to easily wash my hands and small tools, with warm or at least lukewarm water. It couldn't require a lot of space, or a lot of electricity.

Now, there's high-end options like the Cink, but even if I had the $2000, I don't have the space.

Instead, I give you the $50 portable warm-water studio sink. No, it's not elegant, but it does the job for a tight space and a tight budget.

First, you're going to need to buy this particular electric pump faucet, which was recommended to me by someone on Clay Buddies. There are possibly other brands that will work, but you'll need to fit them yourself then. While you're at it, pick up another Clay Buddies recommendation: this aquarium heater (the 50W version; do not get a more powerful one).

Now, that faucet is designed to go on top of a 5-gallon water cooler bottle. Which is not what we're putting it on top of, so we need to manufacture a fitting. Which means ... on to the 3D printer! You'll need to print this design. If you don't have a 3D printer, I recommend PrintaThing (please do not contact me about printing one for you for hire; that's not a business I'm interested in).

You're also going to need a few other tools:

• 3.8" drill
• hacksaw or keyhole saw
• drill bits, including 1/8", 1/4" and 3/8"
• hole cutter (hole saw) drill bit, in graduated sizes up to 2.5"

However, it only requires a few other materials, some of which you may already have:

• A 5 gallon insulated beverage cooler (buy one now, they're on sale for winter)
• One wood, plywood, or strand board, around 15 by 19 inches and 3/8" to 3/4" thick, ideally painted or varnished to keep it from getting waterlogged
• Three #8 by 1/2" screws, preferably brass
• One 1.5" rubber stopper
• Four 12" cable ties
• One multi-outlet extension cord or plug tree
• A plastic washbasin, no more than 4.5" tall
• A large funnel
• A micro-USB charger

Now, first you need to use the saw cut a slot in the screw threads of the beverage cooler, so that you can slide down the cord of the aquarium heater and still screw the lid of the cooler closed. You'll need to cut a slot around 1/4" wide. Then slide the cord in, stick the heater to the bottom of the cooler, and run the cord to the extension cord. Fill the cooler most of the way with water, because after this refilling it will get significantly slower. Set the heater to 80F.

Now it's time to cut some holes! First, you're going to cut two holes in the lid of the beverage cooler (while it's off, so you don't get plastic in the water). One you'll drill with the 3/8" drill bit, which should be around 1.5"-2" in from one of the edges of the lid. The second one you'll use the hole saw for; you want to cut it around 1", but check what size it needs to be for that rubber stopper to fit snugly. The second hole should go opposite the first hole, and around 2" in from the closest edge.

Now you need to cut matching holes into the board. Use the lid as a template to mark the holes. One narrow end of the board should tangent the edge of the lid with the small hole; the big hole will end up closer to the middle of the board. Drill the small hole with the same 3/8" drill bit. For the big hole, you want to make it bigger than the one in the lid, so get a 2" or 2.5" hole saw and cut a bigger hole, centered on the one you drew.

Put the 3D printed faucet mount on the board, with its hole matching up with the 3/8" hole. Using the 1/8" drill bit, drill three pilot holes to match the screw holes for the faucet mount tabs. Drill these around 1/4" deep.

Time to assemble. Screw the lid on the cooler so that the small hole is at the back. Put the board on top, line up the small hole, and put something through it to hold it aligned. Make sure the big hole is also aligned. Get the 1/4" drill bit and drill two holes close to the edges of the board where they hang over the handles of the beverage cooler. Put the cable ties through these holes and the handles, at first loose and then gradually tighten them one at a time, tying the board into place.

Put the rubber stopper in the hole in the beverage cooler lid. Assemble the electic faucet, attaching its silicone hose, run the hose through the faucet mount, and fit the faucet onto the mount. Run the silicone hose through the board and the lid and down into the water. Use the three brass screws to fasten the faucet mount to the board. Plug the USB charger into the extension cord, and the USB cord into the faucet.

Put the plastic washbasin on the board. Press the button. You now have warm running water!

When you want to top off the water, move the basin, unplug the rubber stopper, and pour water in using the large funnel. I suggest pouring in already-warm water, or it's liable to take a long time to reheat. When the washbasin is full, dump it out in the yard.

Note that the silicone hose from the faucet will not reach the bottom of the cooler, so you can't use all the water. This is on purpose, so that the heater doesn't melt the cooler.

It's spring and time for planting here in the Pacific Northwest. Which also means time for preparing the garden beds. Last spring, I built two new 4ft by 6ft raised beds from around $140 worth of cedar and way too many screws. You can do this too.

Our backyard in Portland is hard-packed clay that few things other than trees can grow in. Seriously -- I could probaby screen the rocks out of it and throw a pot. But this means that, to grow vegetables, I need raised beds. And I needed them to be tall, 16" or more. I also wanted a trellis at one end of each bed, to hold peas or cucumbers.

My construction was built around the fact that we have a cedar lumberyard in East Portland: Custom Cedar Products at 162nd & Sandy. This means that cedar fence planks, in particular, are really affordable (like $3 each) making them the best base material for my beds. So, to make two beds like I did, head out to the cedar mill and get:

• 8: 2' long 4"x4"s
• 4: 2' long 2"x4"s
• 12: 6' long 6" wide cedar fence board
• 12: 4' long 6" wide cedar fence board
• 8: 4x4 fencepost caps

You'll also need, from the hardware store:

• About 150 #8 brass 2" screws (see below)
• 2: 8' x 42" concrete reinforcement grids
• 4: 4' rebar pieces
• 1: 100' roll heavy garden plastic or heavy duty plastic dropcloth
• At least 2 dozen 1/2" hammer-in staples
• Staple gun and at least a full box heavy-duty 3/8" staples
• 4-8 heavy-duty metal tent stakes, steel garden stakes, or 2' pieces of rebar
• 16: 6" heavy zip ties
• About 50 feet of 2' wide ground cloth (or, more likely, cut 8' ground cloth into strips)
• 8-10 cu ft of bark or multch

Tools you'll need to have are:

• Staple gun (see above)
• Drill, either corded or 18v+, with 3/16" drill bit
• Phillips driver bit
• Angle drill guide
• Quick-change hex bit holder (optional, but super-useful)
• 6' x 3' or larger work table
• 3: 2' or longer bar clamps
• Large T-square
• Heavy-duty wire snips or small bolt cutters
• Table saw or large rotary saw (optional)

The brass screws on the shopping list are an expensive item (I think that's like $50 in screws), but I wanted to make sure that I would be able to take the beds apart again even after years of weathering. If you don't care, use the cheaper zinc screws.

So, here's how assembly goes. Apologies for not having more photos of the process, but I was working alone.

1. If you have a saw, trim the 4x4s and the 2x4s to be 4" shorter, so that they don't stick up so much above the raised bed.

2. on a large worktable, place two of the 4x4"s 4 feet apart and
   parallel. Place 3 of the 4' fence boards across these two, starting to be flush with the bottom of the posts, and flush against each other, and almost flush with the edges of the 4x4s.

3. Clamp the boards into place using the bar clamps as best you can.

4. Set up the angle drill guide to drill a 1.6" hole.

5. Drill two holes in the end of each board into the 4x4, for 6 holes per 4x4.

6. Switch to the phillips driver (without the angle guide) and drive in the screws.

7. Repeat with the other set of 4' boards.

8. Arrange the 6' boards flush against each other with spare 2x4s propping them up on the ends. The cedar 2x4 you're using goes under the center of this set of boards.

9. Drill two holes in each board into the 2x4, then fill with screws.

10. Repeat with the other set of 6' boards.

11. You should now have two 4' panels (with 4x4s at the ends) and two 6' panels (held together by 2x4s in the middle).

12. On a flat patio or driveway, stand up the two 4' panels on their ends, 6' apart. This is where I got my sweetie to help, but stablizing the upright 4' panels.

13. Put one of the 6' panels across the two.

14. Drill 2 holes per board (a set of 6, again) and add screws.

15. Flip the whole U-shaped assembly over so that you can attach the other 6' panel. Again, you'll need more hands for this.

16. Attach the other 6' panel.

17. You now have a rectangular raised bed frame. Repeat with the other frame.

18. Put the raised bed frames where you want them.

19. Optional: Dig a small trench (like a 1/2" deep groove) for the bed walls to rest in. I ended up not doing this; on my hard clay, it wasn't necessary.

20. On the 4' side where you want the trellis, attach 2 rebar pieces to the inside of the 4x4s using the hammer-in staples, about 1/2" out from the boards.

21. Slide the concrete wire down into the slot thus created. As standard width for concrete wire is about 42", it should exactly fit.

22. Trim the wire grid down to the height you want it, probably about 6'.

23. Fasten the concrete wire to the rebar using zip ties. Reenforce by stapling the wire to the boards behind it. It should now look like this:

    

24. cut the lawn plastic into a strip about 20" wide and 20 feet long.

25. Staple the plastic just below the inside top of the boards, all the way around the inside of the raised bed. It will be about 4" too long and bunch up.

26. when finished stapling, tip the bed so that you can pull the excess plastic under the wood, cutting it at the corners to spread. This protects it from rotting due to ground seepage.

27. Put the bed in its final spot.

28. Hammer in the tent stakes on the outside, next to the 2x4s in the middle of each 6' side. Use 1 or two each depending on how heavy they are. Hammer them until they are only 4" above the surface, and tight against the wood. These are there to prevent bulging and cracking when you fill the beds with dirt.

29. Add the caps on the exposed 4x4 tops, attaching with screws. Optionally, also make a "cap" on each 2x4" with the scrap bits from your earlier trimming.

30. Make a 2' "skirt" around each raised bed with groundcloth strips. Cover these with mulch or bark. This will prevent weeds from surrounding your beds. Here's a photo of the plastic and the skirt:

    

31. Fill the raised bed with a good raised bed mix. It will require about 1 cubic yard of dirt for each raised bed.

You are now ready to plant. Well, after you test the soil for plant nutrition.

So first, let me get out of the way that there's very much easier ways to convert your Brent pottery wheel to a standing wheel than building an armature out of ABS pipe. In fact, I'd say that this is one of the most labor-intensive ways to make one. I got this design from Don Clarke, who put a basic description and some photos on his website, so I wanted to put full instructions and measurements here in my blog in case anyone is foolish inspired enough to make one.

Here's the advantages of an ABS pipe wheel lift:

• floor footprint the same size as regular wheel
• easy to mop under
• cheap
• sturdy

And here's the disadvantages:

• difficultly of construction
• ABS sawdust
• no way to change height once built
• not possible to be exact about height (up to 1" error)
• no extra space for tools/pedal/etc

Not dissuaded yet? Well, let's start work.

The first step is to determine the ideal height for a standing wheel for you. The wheelhead should hit somewhere around your bellybutton, but that varies a bit by your throwing technique and how tall the items you typically throw are.

The best way to really figure this out is to try out a temporary setup. I used my Artista portable wheel and a table, with boards to raise it. If you have to use your Brent for this, then I suggest a combination of cinderblocks and bricks to test different heights. That wheelhead is 20" from the bottom of the pipe legs on the Brent (at least, it is on my 25-year-old model C), so measure from the floor to the wheelhead and subtract 20" to get the height of the armature you want.

I wanted between 39" and 40", so the rest of my measurements below are based on that height. The rest of these instructions also assume that the measurements of a Brent haven't changed in the last 30 years, which I don't think they have, but you really want to double-check.

Once you've done that, it's time to go shopping! Here's what you'll need:

• 10-ft of 2" ABS plastic sewer pipe
• 8 x 2" "sanitary" t-joints
• 3 x 2-to-3" ABS expansion joints
• 1 can of ABS or all-pipe "glue"
• Quality 30" ruler or T-square
• Small level
• Miter saw with fine-tooth (80 to 160) blade, preferably electric cutoff type
• 1-2 pairs of disposable nitrile gloves
• Hearing, hand, and eye protection and a large apron or similar

Some tips based on my own hard experience: first, buy extra of most things. I got 20ft of pipe and 2 extra t-joints and it still wasn't enough to make up for my screw-ups in cutting and gluing, and I had to go back to the hardware store. Second, do this during good weather where you can do your sawing and gluing outside. That ABS "sawdust" gets everywhere and will totally ruin any clay it gets into if you make the mistake of cutting it in your studio. Third, get a miter saw instead of doing this with a table saw like I did, you'll have a much easier time with cutting the pipe.

Once you have all the parts and equipment, you'll want to flip your wheel upside down and level it using blocks. You need to do this because you will have to do final assembly of the armature on the legs of the wheel, or there's no way you'll get the fit exactly right, and the fit needs to be precise or the legs of the Brent won't go in and you'll have to throw the whole thing out and start over.

So, next we need to cut all the pieces for each "leg", which consists of an expansion joint as a foot, a 3" piece of pipe, a t-joint, a longer piece of pipe, and another t-joint. That longer piece of pipe is where you adjust the height of this. For my target 39.5", I used a 7.25" long pipe, so lengthen or shorten yours depending on whether you want to be taller or shorter.

Now, you'll notice a difficulty with sanitary T-joints. They aren't symmetrical. Since they're designed for sewer output, the bottom of the T curves, and is closer to one side than the other. This means that you have to pay close attention to the orientation of the T-joint, and this is also where your main gluing screw-ups will come in.

Having cut all those pieces, we need to glue them. Put on the nitrile gloves. While ABS glue is non-toxic, it "melts" the plastic and that black plastic will stick to your hands and require pumice to scrub off. You use the applicator in the can to rub the glue on both sides of the join and then push the pieces together. Here's the other challenge: ABS glue sets immediately, so you need to push the pieces into the right position the first time. And make sure that those t-joints face precisely the same direction.

Now, the three legs are going to be joined by two "T" shapes for stability. The short side of each "T" has a sanitary T-joint in the middle, but since those joints are off-center, you'll need to glue them with different length pipes on each side, one 4" and the other 5.25". Once this is set, you'll glue in the last, 28 5/8" long pieces for the long crossbar.

Now comes the really hard part. You're going to need to put all three legs on the legs of the wheel, and then insert the T stabilizers, with glue, between them. One thing that makes this super-tricky is that the tops of the legs fit very tightly onto the legs of the Brent, tightly enough that you generally need to hammer them on. If you do it right, you'll have this:

So, some steps:

1. Remove any plastic feet from the wheel legs.
2. Clean the bottom of the wheel legs, even sand them if they are rusty or corroded.
3. Press each plastic leg assembly onto the 3 legs, and get it into position, but don't shove or hammer it down.
4. Glue the long part of both Ts into the front leg, and then quickly before they set ...
5. Lean the two back legs, insert the crossbars with glue, and push them back together, and then quickly ...
6. Using a rubber mallet and some scrap wood, hammer all three legs into place before the glue is fully set, and
7. Check that the feet are level using your level and bash them around with the mallet until they are.

As you can imagine, the above will go better with an assistant, since the last four steps have to be done before the glue sets, meaning in about 2 minutes total. Now, let that assembly dry and set for at least 12 hours before you flip it over, something which definitely requires an assistant, as you don't really want to put a lot of sideways pressure on the legs while flipping.

Now, build yourself a backrest, plug the wheel in, and you're ready to throw!

I've started throwing larger bowls and platters lately, and that's given me an issue with trimming. My foam trimming bat I made a few years ago is only 14" in diameter, and it's pretty easy for me to get a little larger than that. So I need a bigger foam trimming bat, maybe 18".

My first thought was to buy one, but as it turns out I can't, and wouldn't want to. First, even Van Gilder's terrific foam bats top out at 15". Second, large bats are inordinately expensive, like $60 or $80 for an 18". Let's look at what we can do more cheaply.

So, here's our materials:

• 18" pine tabletop from Lowe's, $8
• used yoga matt, $2 at a garage sale
• Pliobond contact cement, $7

I could have saved a couple more bucks by cutting an 18" circle out of plywood instead, but that would have taken me an hour, so the tabletop. However, I've since discovered that those pine tabletops tend to warp, so if I had to make another one I think I'd use the plywood.

Used yoga matts are a terrific material for cushioning all kinds of ceramic ware, so any time you see one at a garage sale, snap it up. They're grippy, cushy, and cut easily with scissors.

Next: the hard part: you need to drill bat pin holes in the appropriate places. Rather than playing around a lot with measuring, I centered a 14" bat on the wood circle using measuring calipers and marked where its holes were.

Then I spent a long time with a drill and a Dremel tool carefully making holes the exact depth and size of bat pins. Periodically, I put the bat on the wheel to check fit.

Cutting out the yoga matt was easy. I just traced the wood and then cut.

For gluing the matt to the board, I used contact cement. This seemed the best choice, because I wanted a lasting bond, and it needed to be something which would stick to the flexible, spongey yoga matt material. However, this meant I went through 2/3 of a bottle of contact cement.

Then I put a larger tabletop on the stack and pressed for an hour to set the glue. After I took this picture, it occured to me that a 25lbs bag of clay made a better weight, and swapped them.

Once the glue was set, I put the bat on the wheel and drew centering circles, about 1" apart, on it with a jumbo Sharpie. Foam bat done!

Anyone wanna buy a 15" serving platter?