Potter’s Wheel

With the help of my friend Darrel we finally got the potter’s wheel finished.  Believe it or not, it cost less than five dollars to build.  The only thing that was purchased was a stainless steel drain hole that was mounted in the right hand corner of the table.  The rest of the materials were found lying around the shop and basically recycled.

The whole table top, throwing head, and splash aprons were made out of a piece of Corian counter top that was pulled out of a kitchen that was remodeled.  A 1-1/4 inch pipe flange was used to secure the wheel head to the shaft.

The flywheel is actually the base plate from an A.M. radio tower that collapsed in a storm several years back.  This looks small but it must weigh well over 100 lbs., and it was free.  The only thing that had to be done to the flywheel was to drill a 1-1/4 inch hole in the center to accept the shaft.

The shaft is actually a thing called a “saw arbor,” which came from a lumber mill saw that was found in a pile of scrap metal in the back yard of the mill.  It is a piece of cold rolled steel 1-1/4 inch thick and about 30 inches long.  The two pillow block bearings that secure the shaft were also found in scrap piles.  There is not a flange bearing at the base of the flywheel because we used  the two pillow block bearings.  The bottom of the shaft sits on a 1/2 in ball bearing which sits atop a piece of steel.

Darrel insisted that the the kick wheel also have a motor and he found that as well.  We must have gotten lucky because the speed of the motor, which is fixed, was a perfect speed to power assist the flywheel.

All the lumber used in the project were pieces of mixed scrap wood from the wood shop.  We kind of loosely followed some plans found on the internet to build this wheel but adapted the original plans to incorporate the materials that we had collected and had on hand.  This project may sound too intimidating for many people to try to build but if you’re creative and are persistent in scrounging the materials, you too can build a potters wheel and might be able to build it at no cost.  And, if you do want to try to build one and have any questions regarding this post just email me at jguin@wkbt.com

To see additional photos of the building process just click on any of the photos in this post to take you to a mini slide show with descriptions of each photo, or click here.