Buying a wheel

The trick I've used in the past is to talk to a local potter or studio that places large orders with a place like Axner, and ask if you can add a wheel to their order---often you'll get a better price, and a much better deal on shipping since they are shipping it with a large order anyways. Then you only have to schlep it across town somehow.

As far as used wheels: in my experience used wheels don't sell at too much of a discount. For kickwheels, they are easy to test: if it spins smoothly it's probably good. For electrics, you need to spend some time working the motor through it's paces.

I think approach a local potter or pottery group and ask for some help. They will have the contacts necessary.

I know that it takes away the element of surprise, but if my husband were going to buy me a wheel, I'd rather he take me shopping for it than to buy it himself. The unromantic reason is, though I might not have known exactly what I wanted, I did know what I didn't want and, even if I had expressed that to him, there were still other details that probably would never have come up. When the time came he told me to look at them all and decide what I wanted and then gave me the go-ahead. The result: TWO happy campers!

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Problem is, I'm not sure there is such an animal. There's a large group of sculptors and other direct-builder sorts of things, not to mention the slipcaster sorts of things. But the only folks we know of who work on wheels are at CityArts (the, as the name suggests, city-sponsored art center), and when he asked there he got a sort of vague "*We* sometimes sell our old wheels," and that was it. Those are all electric, and I'm thinking I don't want a thrashed ex-pottery-class wheel.

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Schlepping across town is no problem; I have a minivan. Of course, thanks to said minivan needing hub bearings, struts, shocks, and a ball joint, I may have to reconsider the purchase. Ow.

Well, darn.

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If he were more advanced at this, I'd be more concerned about that. But given that all he's had to work with are the electric wheels at CityArts, and a little bit with a kickwheel, I don't think *he* has a really good idea what he's wanting. Or not wanting. I expect, as Simon points out, that it'll get exchanged down the road, at which point I'll be more happy about used wheels holding their value...

Actually, I ordered mine online. It was cheaper, even with shipping, than I could buy locally.

Contact the art department of your local university and find out if they have a pottery program. Contact the teacher and talk with her/him about what you want. They may even have a wheel to sell. Often they are willing to include outside orders with theirs. And don't forget the local public schools. There is little to wear out on a kick wheel so a used wheel should not be counted out. Just wash the clay off :)

I used a number of different kick wheels for a couple of years in a community art program then decided to build my own. It was almost as much fun building it as it was using it! My creative, emotional, and time investment in the project made the wheel uniquely mine. Still an object of pride. So, you might also consider a kit. The ceramic art magazines often feature them. Googling on pottery, kickwheel, kit shows a Brent kickwheel kit. Further Googling revealed the following plans:

Both of you have fun. Raj

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I'm definitely not discounting a used kick wheel. The ones at CityArts are pretty high-mileage, though, so that's not where I'd pick up a used electric. There would be, after all, a *reason* they didn't want that wheel around anymore...

He actually did start building his own kickwheel some time back, but Something Bad happened when he cast it, and he's not gotten around to busting up the concrete and starting over. So if I decide to get a kit, I might end up having to figure out what it is he's already got so as not to duplicate it. Not much, I think; just the bearings (Harbor Freight, I don't doubt), and everything else was scrap lumber and whatnot. No head, that I saw. The Brent kickwheel kit is probably what I'd get... he's got the full woodworking shop to take care of the rest, and I think he actually considered it but couldn't justify the expense. It's been long enough now that I think it's a hobby he'll stay with, and having our own kiln (see below) will make it that much easier.

I think we're covered there, in that we do know a lot of people who do "ceramics." (Is there a better term for "cleaning up, glazing, and firing mold-cast clay stuff"?) Plus CityArts was, last I checked, quite good about allowing past students to tack stuff onto their orders. That's the route I'll probably go if I end up mail-ordering something new, provided they don't mind me doing some very substantial "tacking."

And, here's part of what prompted me to go ahead and do this, my mother's "simplifying" and getting rid of the fairly nice and nearly unused electric kiln, so that's what *she's* giving us for Christmas, along with the glazes and whatnot that she had.

Of course, I *know* where this'll lead, and pretty soon he'll have built his own gas-fired kiln in the backyard...

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And to everyone who responded, on or off the newsgroup: Thanks bunches!

I'm tentatively going to go with a Brent kit, probably with a steel kickplate in place of the plywood/brick one. That is, I'll be