Elizabeth Hewitt on sat 29 aug 98
Thank you for the advice both here and privately on glaze videos. I now have
Robin Hopper glaze videos on order.
I remember a discussion sometime last year about wobbly wheels but I'm
not sure if they were referring to the problem I notice with mine. Centering
has been a struggle for me and last week I realized why. My wheel isn't
centered. It's level and it doesn't wobble (as in up and down) but it just
isn't mounted on center......how can that be? I'm sure it doesn't effect
the throwing but creates a terrible optical allusion. When I close my
eyes and center the clay...I can tell it is centered, open my eyes and the
clay looks like it's wobbling and off center. I am now taking a small
paint brush and dipping it in water and letting it wet a ring on the wheel
before I start centering. It stays wet long enough to give me a centered
visual around my centered clay, sort of a landmark to get my focus off
the wobbly look. I expect as I get more skilled this won't be an issue,
but I really wish it was centered and looked centered around my clay.
Is there some way to fix this? My hubby is an engineer and he has
looked at it with me and agrees the wheel is off center. It seems like the
only way this is possible is that the wheel wasn't mounted on its shaft in
a central position. It also seems like if it was, it wouldn't matter where
on the table it was mounted, it would still be centered?? Any thoughts?
BTW, a strange thing happens to the emails I send to this list. The end of
all sentences gets cut off. I am now hitting _enter_ to make line breaks
sooner. Anyone have that problem or know why?
Elizabeth
Andrew Buck on sun 30 aug 98
On Sat, 29 Aug 1998, Elizabeth Hewitt wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> My wheel isn't
> centered. It's level and it doesn't wobble (as in up and down) but it just
> isn't mounted on center......how can that be? I'm sure it doesn't effect
> the throwing but creates a terrible optical allusion. When I close my
> eyes and center the clay...I can tell it is centered, open my eyes and the
> clay looks like it's wobbling and off center.
> I expect as I get more skilled this won't be an issue,
> but I really wish it was centered and looked centered around my clay.
Elizabeth,
A big part of learning to throw on the wheel is learning to trust what
your hands feel over what your eyes see. You can feel when the clay is
centered better than you can see it. You can feel hard lumps and air
bubbles in the clay that you can not see. You can feel how thick and thin
the walls of the pot are. Your eyes help, but your hands know. Many
people I know use square 1/4 inch masonite batts stuck to the wheel with
clay pads. Try that a couple of times and your eye will not even register
that the wheel head is mounted off center. 8^D
Andy Buck
Raincreek Pottery
Port Orchard, Washington
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