here come the pots.

Okay I lied...there's only one, but there are surely going to be many to follow soon. Here is the first pot on my new treadle wheel. I've never actually used one of these before so this was a whole new world of weirdness for me. I read somewhere that throwing on a treadle wheel is the potting equivalent of patting your head and rubbing your belly, I found that to be true. The great joy for me was more about building the thing rather than using it, though I'm sure that will find a special place in my heart soon enough.


The plans I had were pretty rough to say the least, there were a lot of things left to figure out on my own. Rather than calling folks up who have one of these I sat around and tried to figure out on my own what I needed to, that sort of thing is a great pleasure for me. So there are a few things that are different on this guy, what I thought may be improvements...only time will tell.

The wheelhead has a slight wobble to it due to the shaft being slightly out of alignment. The top part of the shaft and the wheelhead are from an old kickwheel. The shaft wasn't long enough so I cut off the top six inches to keep the taper that fits into the wheelhead and welded it onto the new shaft. I welded it 3 different times and no matter what setup or jig I used I couldn't get them perfectly aligned. This last time I figured out the high spot and stood on the wheelhead and stomped on it a little, this improved the wobble to about 1/16"...good enough for me. The rest of the crankshaft was a piece of cake, though my torch cutting skills are not what they used to be!

Time to go teach my night class, pinch pots here we come!

Cheers!