pottery throwing demo on a car tire~by Hillar Bergman

A demonstration of the car tire potter's wheel in use. There is a video on YouTube showing a potter in India using a primitive wheel at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=588Mh7yzqVQ
His wheel is built very low to the ground. If you watch that video, notice how unbalanced the wheel is. That doesn't matter as all the leveling and centering is done on the clay. I wonder what sort of bearing is in his pottery wheel? He also powers his wheel with a spinning stick. I used a tire iron in this video, but think a light wooden stick or dowel would be a lot safer. That tire iron could really be a hazard if it gets stuck when the wheel is moving fast.
I found another video on YouTube of a child in India making a pot on a very simple wheel, and that video is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-4J41zPJ7k
I may experiment with a different type of stand at a lower height, but for now this works fine for me. I also thought about adding more weight by filling the tire with water, but I'm happy with the way it works without extra weight added. I don't mind giving the wheel an extra spin or two for centering. It would be easy to add a friction-drive motor to this wheel if that was desired. I'll probably keep it simple. I'm throwing "off the hump" in this video, but it's easy to flatten some clay on the wheel surface and use a bat instead.
I ended up building a small "x" shaped stand out of 2x6 wood and screwed a floor flange to the top of the "x". This wheel is now being used in a high school pottery studio. If you build one of these wheels, please leave a comment and let me know how it's working out for you! Thanks :-)

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• car
• tire
• primitive
• home
• made
• potter's
• wheel
• pottery
• pot
• throwing
• demo
• demonstration
• ceramics
• Hillar
• Bergman
• Traverse
• City
• MI
• art
• craft
• greenware
• clay
• stoneware

[Junior13Jr2010]

Where do you get your Clay 

[catinnahat]

From a variety of sources. Prefer pre-mixed and ready to use. I like to experiment with clays I find out in nature too..

[scopafaceri]

Fill the tire with sand, for longer rotation ...

[meagleycreep]

That's cool as ice.. I may have to borrow your Idea, they are getting 800 to $1000 for a good wheel these days and you cut that by 98% with a little elbow grease!

[turtle10ize]

very good

[DaddyMoreBucksTV]

Would be interesting to fix a large pizza stone on the top of it. Mount it on there somehow and let any moisture run off the sides. Excellent idea!

[ProtectABedTV]

Wow.. great idea!

[catinnahat]

yes, there are lots of ways to enhance the basic assembly.

[Doyalwcheese]

hahahaaaahaha this is great, now anyone can go to the junk yard and become a potter for about 15 bucks and go dig some earth! wheres the part where you make a kiln out of mud an corn!

[shanna1950]

it works!

[smrki1]

Have been looking for a doable cheap idea for potters wheel for a long time. Thank you very very much!

[Bloodshotistic]

Thank you so much for the idea. Do you mind if I use it? I have been missing pottery for a while.

[xxAyulxx]

this reminds me of the movie Ghost

[mrmts]

put water or pebbles in the tire to make it spin for longer