Help!

[phook]

I have an older model Bailey ST potters wheel that I purchased at an estate sale. The wheel has a bounce to it, it's pretty significant so there's no possibility of centering your clay.

I checked the belts. There's no crimp and all 4 are moving smoothly. While on it's side, with the bottom cover off, I am able to see the thing (shaft?) has a little bounce while it's in motion.

Can anyone help dx this issue and tell me if this problem is something I can repair myself? Thanks in advance! :-)

[oldlady]

welcome and congratulations on your new purchase.  are you able to take a short video of it and send it to Bailey?   they are very responsive and will help you figure it out.

[GEP]

I have an older Bailey ST. At one point it developed what I would call a “wobble.” The design of the wheel is very simple and I was able to fix it myself. There are two set screws that hold the shaft tight in place. In my case, both of them were loose. We had a rare earthquake I think that’s when the problem started. Tightening up both set screws solved the problem. In the years since, the problem has not returned. I wrote a blog post about it.

http://www.goodelephant.com/blog/that-little-sob

This is something you easily try on your own first. If it doesn’t help then I echo oldlady’s suggestion to take a video and contact Bailey.

[Viking Potter]

To expand on  GEP's answer, if you remove the wheel head and examine the shaft, it will either turn true or not.  If it turns true, that is, it does not wobble, they you only need fix the wheelhead issue (what ever it might be)  if the shaft does not spin true then it may be bent, bearings may be bad etc.  more difficult fix.  To see if the shaft spins true you can place a permanent marker so that it almost touches the shaft where the wheel head attaches (tape it on a little box, use some clay, whatever) and slowly turn the shaft to see if it makes a mark anywhere on the shaft.  keep moving the pen closer and turning the shaft till you see it make a mark.  if it makes a mark all the way around or nearly so , then the shaft is probably running true.  if it makes a mark in just one spot, or on less than 3/4 of the shaft then the shaft may not be running true.  If it makes a mark on most of the shaft but not all of it you may have a flat spot, try to check a different spot on the shaft.  then do the same thing with the motor running the shaft.  if you get a different result between hand turning the shaft and running the motor, I would suspect a bearing issue,