[TheForge] English wheel

[Bob Ehrenberger]

I finished my English Wheel this week. I haven't tried it out yet because I 
had to lay it down
to finish the welding and figured I'd paint the bottom side before standing
it back up.  I'll paint the top side side tomorrow and be able to use it
when the paint dries in this cool weather.

I came up with a design that was kind of a
hybred between the HF, Grizzly, and Covell machines. I used 'I' beams
instead of square tubing because that's what I had. It has a little flex
side to side, but is rigid up and down.  If the flex is a problem I'll have
to add support. Time will tell.

Other than about $2.00 worth of hardware I was able to make the frame all
from material (scrap) that I had on hand. I got a set of HF lower anvil 
wheeles on clearance for $50 and a friend gave me several 1" wids 5" 
diamiter steel wheels that were some kind of industrial caster to use for 
the top wheel.

For now I'm just using a single 1" wheel on top. I don't know if I can weld 
two
wheels together without leaving blemishes on the surface.  If the 1" wheel 
doesn't work,
I'll try welding the other two together.  Or try to get a real welder to do 
it for me.

I make and sell a lot of bowls.  I used to make them mainly with a swage 
block, or sink them into a wheel rim.  Last summer I made tooling for my 
press that I can use to make bowls by pushing the metal into the void of a 
ring.  This is faster than hand hammering but leaves a lot of marks that 
then need to be hammered out.  I'm hoping that the English wheel will roll 
out these marks quickly and reduce the hand hammering that I have to do.

Robert Ehrenberger
Shelbyville, Mo.
eforge at centurytel.net