Old Potters Wheel. I'm Fascinated!

[PuckGoodfellow]

I was yet again perusing YouTube and came across a video a middle-eastern potter using a primitive but AWESOME potters wheel. Here's the video.. http://youtu.be/xejyiZUJkd8

 

I have a few questions..

What kind of stone is it made out of?

Or is it made out of clay (yes.. I know clay is a form of stone)?

Do they sell them anywhere (accessible to me)?

Could I make one?

Or is that unrealistic?

Do they use a form of lubrication between the wheel and the stone under it?

Or do they just have it so smooth after years of use that if just spins like butter?

 

If you know anything about these wheels.. Please.. Tell me everything!!

 

Thank you again

[Celia UK]

I think you can bin that list of basic tools! New list:

Clay, water, bowl, chamois.

[Pugaboo]

Is that the underside of a wheel seen behind him leaning against the wall? It kind of looks like the same circumference so maybe that is what the bottom looks like and might help in figuring all those questions out.

 

Terry

[PuckGoodfellow]

I had that thought to but it just doesn't seem quite right. Unless there is a third piece we don't know about.

[Pugaboo]

The small piece laying in front of the leaning one has a peg sticking up out of it and it looks to me as if there is an impression in the center knob on the leaning one. The one he uses just leans on the ground until he uses the stick to spin it. I think the one in the back is another wheel unassembled. He throws off the hump so having a completely level balanced wheel head isn't needed he gets the lump of clay close to the center then he throws his piece from the center of the lump not the wheel.

 

Terry

[PeterH]

>Is that the underside of a wheel seen behind him leaning against the wall? It kind of looks like the same circumference so maybe that is what the bottom looks like and might help in figuring all those questions out.

 

... and could the bottom pivot be standing in-front of the that wheel (like an upside down thumb-tack).

 

Could be a very nifty way of getting the centre of gravity of the wheel below a single pivot point,

and most of the mass at the circumference.

[High Bridge Pottery]

In the video he goes off to point at the dismantled wheel behind and explain but the person is more interested in videoing the wedging. The bottom looks like clay with a wooden spike, not sure on the stone that the top is made from.

 

He says the stone is 80-90kg and passed down the family.

[PuckGoodfellow]

if the wheel he was using had that peg wouldn't it hold it upright?

the wheel moves like it has a depression on the underside and its sitting on a rounded stone.

i want one.   It just looks like fun.

I wonder if i could get my local quarry to cut a stone that looked like that..  

 

but pottery wheels are usually made of clay right?

 

How would you even fire something that big? 

i don't think i would even want to try.

for some reason.. the thought of firing something that big seems dangerous.

[Stellaria]

I think pottery wheel heads would more likely be stone or wood.

[Mark369]

Bet trimming is fun on that! 

[Benzine]

I've seen wheels like that before, sometimes built into a small pit, so the wheel head is almost even with the ground.

Every example of this wheel type, I've seen, have been from India. I'm guessing, this type originated there???

 

I could not squat like to throw. I brace my elbow against my hip a lot, and that position would cancel that. Not to mention, I'd constantly get light headed, going from squatting to standing.

[Bob Coyle]

Years ago I made a similar wheel out of cast concrete. I used a wood block underneath with a old VW throwout bearing. Had to drill holes on the underside to get it to balance. I was relatively new to throwing then. It was discouraging. Couldn't keep it spun up enough to work with my bad technique and slow throwing. It ended up as a decorative feature of the garden.

[Benzine]

Interesting Bob.

 

I wonder what was used, for the original versions of those wheels. The one in the video, just kept on a spinning!

[Bob Coyle]

In a third world country you probably could get a stone cutter to make you one out of sandstone without going broke. That would be my guess. He spun it up pretty fast. Plenty of inertia to keep it going. The wheel I made was about half that size and I didn't know about using a stick to get the RPM. I just kicked at it from a sitting position. Never got it spinning fast enough.

 

With the level of skill I have now, I probably could make pots on that wheel from a squatting position...for maybe 20 minutes. I just would have to have help getting back up.

[alabama]

Hey,

     I can't watch the video because of outdated software but if it is of the old guy squatting next to the ancient stone wheel head, you might want to search you tube for easier "home made wheels."   He's 26 years old!!!      (kidding)

 

     There is one youtube video that a guy put a rear bearing assembly on a bracket.  A tire rim attaches to the lugs with tire on it.  I think the tire is filled

with water,(for Momentum).  But it shouldn't be hard to find.  The whole assembly attaches to the trailer hitch of his truck.  His niche is he loves the outdoors

so he finds a scenic place sets up and throws pottery while enjoying the sites and sounds of different parks.

 

     In North Alabama there is a potter - Jerry Brown,, who use to have  a wheel made from a truck axel.  They motorized it with one speed that never

stops during the process.  He'd start with 10 pounds clay, throw a 10 lb. jug or crock, take off the 10 lb. item with pot removers, and repeat without stopping.!!

 

Anyway, good luck.... don't start with the hardest homemade wheel... Two sheets of round plywood with bricks or sandbags in between will do the same thing

 

Alabama