Korean Kickwheel

I have about ten hours into the kickwheel now and have spent 10 dollars on Elmer's wood glue. In fact, I need to pick up some more glue after work today. I should mention that I did not have to pay for any of the cherry wood I have used. I would guess that if I had to buy it, select cherry wood would cost about 300 dollars.

Anyway, I have cut all the rounds out for the wheel head and the fly wheel. Here I have glued the pieces together. After this I will have to glue these two pieces together. The wheel head will be a little over 3 inches thick.

After I planed all the pieces for the fly wheel I decided to add one more layer of wood to make it about 3-1/2 inches thick. I dedided to use walnut and add it to the middle layer of the flywheel. I think the contrasting colors of wood will really look nice. I'm keeping a good diary and posting step-by-step photos on my facebook page. Seems like I'm making some good progress now.

Korean Kick Wheel

I started building a Korean style kick wheel a couple weeks ago. A friend of mine gave me about 25 board feet of cherry wood and I started cutting it up. I have all the pieces glued together now and am going to be planing each layer this week. I've run out of photo space on blogger but if you are a facebook member you can follow my progress in my Korean Kick Wheel photo album. When I get it all done I'll also post the photos somewhere else for public viewing.

Homemade Studio Equipment

Last weekend I built some new equipment for my studio. I built a mini slab roller that works really well, I made a couple plaster reclaim slabs, a nice photo shoot table and even threw some coffee mugs on the kickwheel that I built. I posted photos on my other blog site, Coulee Region Art. If you'd like to see the photos just follow the link and then click on the photo of me at the wheel.

Black Coffee Mugs 1992

Who is the person that has a neighbor that has a set of black coffee mugs with unglazed bottoms and is marked Jeffrey R. Guin 92? This comment/question was posted on this post last week. I would love to find out where the mugs are today. You can email me at jguin@wkbt.com
Looking forward to hearing from you.

Raku Kiln Fire Box

Well here is the fire box for my wood burning raku kiln. This picture does not show the roof but the roof will be a piece of 1/4 inch stainless steel plate. I found it in a scrap pile and it happened to fit pretty well. I'll try it and see how it works.

Anyway, the box is made out of hard fire brick laid on a base of cinder block, which sits upon a slab of concrete. I used half in rebar for the grate. I've decided to add a few more bars spaced about two inches apart. Next step is to build the firing chamber. Stay tuned.

Homemade Pottery Wheel

Well, here is the finished product. A homemade pottery wheel for under five dollars. Except for the stainless steel drain hole in the upper right hand corner of the table top the entire wheel was constructed with recycled or reclaimed found materials.

This was a really fun project, so much so that I am going to build another wheel with a slightly different design.

If you would like to see additional photos of the building process you can check out my slide show at my other blog that I write for work (my paying job), Coulee Region Art.

Build Your Own Potter's Wheel

The potter's wheel works. This wheel was constructed out of materials found lying around the shop. The only thing that was purchased was a stainless steel drain hole that was mounted in the right hand corner of the table top to make cleaning easier. I'll post some step by step photos of the construction a bit later. There is still some tweeking to do. It still needs some paint and a spring operated footpedal for the motor assist but otherwise the wheel is done.