Build Your Own Adult-Sized Font: Part I

One of the great and ingenious aspects of Sacramental Theology is that requires us to roll up our sleeves and dig our fingers into the messy materiality of God's created world. The moment we break bread, pour wine, or swear oil on someone's forehead we are saying something profound about our connection to this world of ours. We aren't just temporarily confused visitors passing through on our way to enlightenment beyond the flesh--we are co-creators with God capable of transforming all of creation into something holy and grace-bearing.

It seems to me that recovering the tradition of full-immersion baptism is both right and good. There is nothing wrong with the sprinkle-of-water variety, but if we can make this rite richer and more in keeping it's monumental spiritual importance, so much the better. So this Sunday at COTM we are doing a full-immersion infant baptism. As luck would have it, my first candidate for inclusion in the Christian family in this way happens to have a mother from Africa who is familiar with full-immersion and thinks it's great.

One problem, we don't have a font deep enough to submerge an infant (let alone anyone bigger). So in less than a week we are building our own baptismal tank:

Build Your Own Adult-Sized Font: Part I

Materials
Galvanized Steel Stock Tank, 6' X 2' X 2' works well
2 1/2' X 8' X 3/4" Plywood Sheet
4 3" Casters with brakes
16 1.5" X 1/4" Carriage bolts
16 Locking Washers to fit
16 1/4" Nuts
2' X 2' X 6' Stock Tank (167 Gallons!)
Tools
Saw horses
Orbital Jigsaw (Use Stardard Wood blade--medium speed)
Pencil
Carpenter's Square
Hand-held drill (with 1/4" bit--self-piloting in even better)
Wrench (Crescent is just fine)
Hammer

Time: 1.5 Hours

Skill Level: Basic

Construction
1. Put your plywood sheet (large enough to cover the base of the tank) on the floor. Put the tank on top and trace the outline of the tank bottom on the plywood.

2. Put the plywood on the saw horses and cut along the pencil line with the jigsaw.

3. Flip the plywood and write "bottom" on the plywood in pencil! Use the square to figure out where to put the casters. They should be symmetrical and not too close to the edge. Then place the actual casters in place and use the pencil to mark drill holes. Drill the holes.

4. Flip the plywood over and put the bolts through the holes. You'll probably need to tap them with the hammer (a snug fit is good).

5. Flip the plywood over again and put the casters in place. Secure with locking wasters and nuts. Don't over-tighten.

6. Put the chassis on the floor and put the tank on top! Done!


Notes
* Get a water heater for the tank to keep the water warm.
* The best place to fill the tank is from a facet that you can attach a garden hose to and get hot water from.
*I'm probably going to add L brackets to the wood chassis to keep the tank from sliding off the platform, though with water in the tank I think it will be okay.

Part II will involve dressing the tank with fabric to make it look pretty. I'm still figuring out what the best way to do that will be. One idea was S-Hooks, but Home Depot didn't have any big enough to fit for the rim. I thought about using a glue gun to attach a velcro strip, but I'm not sure it will adhere to the steel well. Any ideas?

It's a fun project. I pleased to have done it. It's going to make the actual Baptism on Sunday even more fulfilling.

-t