Fredrick Paget on thu 19 dec 02
In the past 10 years I have used a lot of different wheels since I started
in a High school night school class where we had mostly Lockerbys and 3
decrepit electric wheels, took Steven Jepson's two week throwing class and
bought my own wheel at that time and later sold it and bought a Jepson
wheel. Then 4 years at a community college where we have about a half dozen
different kinds of wheels. I have used: 3 different Shimpos, Lockerby -
both kick and electric kick, Brent, Pacifica, Max, Creative Industries,
Advance, Soldner, Jepson, Lockerby Electric, and Thomas-Stuart electric, as
well as some foreign wheels in China, Japan, and Italy. Have not used a
Bailey or Axner but they look interesting.
The best of the lot in my opinion is the Jepson Pro Station, now
regrettably out of production. The next best is the Max for its removable
wheel head and gear drive, although it had a very poor splash pan setup.
Then the Soldner for its nice controller which will give a creeping speed
up to full speed. It has no feedback in the control since it is just a
variable autotransformer with rectifier but you can provide the feedback
yourself by giving it more juice with the pedal. Not good though if you
want set the speed and throw standing up.
I love the removable heads of my Jepson. There are three cast aluminum
heads that can be used - a regular head with bat pins and two sizes of
bucket heads that fit removable plaster bats of 4 sizes. It has a huge
splash pan and a water tank plus a tool shelf. On the minus side the belt
drive can be noisy and the controller is good but not adjustable by the
user so that mine has a dead zone in the first 20 percent of pedal before
you reach an active zone. This can no doubt be adjusted but Steven warned
me not to touch it.
The removable head allows a simple vacuum formed one piece splash pan to be
used. The heads fit a standard Morse taper like is used on lathes and other
machine tools and holds on by friction. It is a solid non slip mounting but
it only takes a few light raps with a 3 pound lead weight from underneath
to pop it off. I use an old skin diving weight and since the Jepson splash
pan is so big and deep (It holds about 4 gallons) there is no problem
getting my hand underneath.
Max uses a bolt on top of the taper for added security and a way to break
the taper free from the top but I have never missed it on the Jepson. The
physics of the Morse taper is interesting. Look it up.
Fred Paget
>I NEED YOUR HELP TO INSURE THAT THIS WHEEL IS THE BEST POSSIBLE ANSWER TO
>THE NEEDS OF SERIOUS CLAY ARTISTS. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE OR
>DISLIKE ABOUT WHEELS YOU HAVE USED. MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHAT FEATURES WOULD
>YOU LIKE TO SEE THAT ARE NOT PRESENTLY AVAILABLE? ANY HELP WILL BE MUCH
>APPRECIATED.
Experiencing El Nino storms. A foot of rain here in the past week.
From Fred Paget, Marin County, California, USA
Lily Krakowski on fri 20 dec 02
The ideal wheel, for me, would be an electric one that ALSO has a treadle or
kickwheel feature, so that I could use the slower more controllable speed of
kicking when using the wheel when decorating.
It would come apart easily and be reducable to no more than 20 lbs pieces so
that a normal human being can pack it up throw in a pickup without breaking
her back.
It would have a lift--maybe some simple hydraulic jack idea-- so that it can
be raised or lowered as the POTTER needs. Tall person throwing standing up,
short person throwing sitting down. It would have additional ADD ON TYPE
features, such as a saddle type seat (like the Leach wheels) or a hip rest
(like the old American treadle wheels) a larger or smaller, deeper or
shallower splash pan. The splash pan would have a drain hole, and there
would be enough room underneath to accomodate a 2 gallon pail.
Lili Krakowski
P.O. Box #1
Constableville, N.Y.
(315) 942-5916/ 397-2389
Be of good courage....
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