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I have an electric potters wheel with a 12" base. I want to purchase several diamond sanding pads and attach it to the top plate. Since the potters wheel can get wet, I will rig up a way to drip water onto the spinning wheel. Does anybody see any problems with this?

Also, What do you guys recommend for wet sanding in tight places? I have the Dremel with diamond bits but it is to slow for my size projects. The average depth of the casting work I am creating (attempting) now is about 2-4 inches deep with right angles and curves on the sides. All my current power equipment is for wood and metal and may cause problems when getting the heads and wheels wet.

And where is the best price for diamond sanding pads I am trying to convert my ceramics equipment to save money as my studio is slowly converted for glass production.

Oh yes, and one more thing... should I take the path least travelled or do the safe route.

Thanks for your suggestions!!!

Mike Hawkins (hoknok)

Hi whatever your name is, somebody mentioned something similar a while back, I think they came up with rigging up a water feed onto the platten and a tyre round the outside to catch the water, with a drainage system.

You can try http://www.cnabrasives.com/ to compare prices for abrasives.

My lifetime experience is that taking the path least travelled is more enlightening because I learn more from my own interpretation of it and so it is more fulfilling. Is the safe route someone elses' enterpretation of a safe route or is it yours? What is your philosophy?

Hoknok,
Do your nieghbors give you such a hard time about your name
Anyway, some people catch water off of their wheel with a large tire.
If the work that you are doing now involves a lot of clean-up you might upgrade your dremel to a Fordham or skip it and look into some pneumatic die grinders. This will eliminate electricity from your playground altogether.
One other thing- you might compare your wheels rpms to a flat lap. Diamonds run fast you may need to change a pulley or two...

Thanks Jerry!, I now have a great excuse to buy me a compressor....
As for the name, mispronouncing it without hearing it first has been common for 20 years. It sounds like "hawk-knock", a form of Hawkins I guess. Its what my art directors called me back then and it stuck. Good or bad... once you hear it, its hard to forget, which has served me well in my design and photography trade.

As for the die grinders, are people just using them in a tub of water. My potters wheel also spins very fast, much faster than one needs to have for throwing pots anyway. But the pneumatic option sounds obvious now as one of the ways to go.

As for the die grinders, are people just using them in a tub of water.

Yes, that's what I do. Works fine, but man do you get wet! I do it outside. For really big pieces I use one of those cheap blue swimming pools for deprived children without real pools.

Jackie

Quote: Yes, that's what I do. Works fine, but man do you get wet! I do it outside. For really big pieces I use one of those cheap blue
swimming pools for deprived children without real pools.

Jackie

Doing it outside? It is -18 Centigrades there.
One need two parts of antifreeze to one part of water.

-lauri

you can also ask over on craftweb. bob stephan at his glass is very helpful. i would try putting a hook and loop fastner on a bat and using that. rosanna

I have seen a potter's wheel used in the finer grit and pumice stages of cold working a flat surface. In this case they were sticking a piece of float down to the wheel and dripping on a slurry of grit and water. The wheel was turning quite slowly. You need a seperate piece of float for each grit to avoid cross contamination. The surface of the float will eventually be ground down so it is uneven and needs to be replaced.

I've also seen a potter's wheel used in conjunction with an angle grinder to cold work a compound curve -- like the front of a sailboat's spinnaker. The glass was clamped down by a jig on the wheel and the angle grinder applied to the glass from above. The force of the angle grinder set the wheel to turning so the glass rotated under the abrasive. This way the artist worked a curve into the face of a solid piece that was clean and consistant from top to bottom and side to side.

rosanna gusler wrote:you can also ask over on craftweb. bob stephan at his glass is very helpful. i would try putting a hook and loop fastner on a bat and using that. rosanna

HIS sells plans to make your own. Their main interest is in selling you the diamond pads. http://www.hisglassworks.com/pages/flatindex.html
click on the link to plans

Check out SW Diamond:

http://swdiamond.freeyellow.com/


I bought one of their diamond discs a few years ago, and run it on an old electric potters wheel. The set up works great.

The discs come with a magnetic backing so you need to attach a heavy piece of steel to the top of the potters wheel, which is usually aluminum.

To do a light grinding, I use an old squirt bottle (dish detergent came in it), and simply wet the wheel and grind until it starts to dry out. Then squirt more water on and start again. I often have many small pieces to grind, so this simple setup works quite well.

For longer grinding on one large piece, I would set up a water drip of some sort.

I have a small hole in the side if the splash pan to let the water drip out into a small bucket. That way I only need to clean the splash pan occassionally.

Hey Charlie

What was the person making when you saw them using "a potter's wheel used in conjunction with an angle grinder to cold work a compound curve"?

I am intrigued by this style of cold work as there are not many people doing it, even though it is a very old style of work. Here is a very interesting site where they use the wheel in a traditional manner:
http://www.romanglassmakers.co.uk/nl2text.htm

(Doesn't Pilchuck seem like a forever ago, a dream maybe? Glad this forum exists.)

jerry flanary wrote:Hey Charlie

What was the person making when you saw them using "a potter's wheel used in conjunction with an angle grinder to cold work a compound curve"?

I am intrigued by this style of cold work as there are not many people doing it, even though it is a very old style of work. Here is a very interesting site where they use the wheel in a traditional manner:
http://www.romanglassmakers.co.uk/nl2text.htm

(Doesn't Pilchuck seem like a forever ago, a dream maybe? Glad this forum exists.)

It was during session one, a student in Zoltan Bohus' class. He teaches the Eastern European method of glueing up layers of float and cold working them. The piece was just like I described, a solid block with one face the shape of a spinnaker. The back was sqared off.

Just yesterday got a Christmas card, cd (of his music) and photos from Lachezar. He won an award in Germany for one of the pieces he did at Pilchuck. Bought a drill press with the award money.

I'm constantly trying to remind myself how dedicated to the production of art I felt while I was there. Here it is so much more about commerce. Scary how fast the time goes and how few new slides I have to show. Not sure if I can swing going back this summer. I promised to help Mitchel out at GAS if he needs it.

ch

Mitchel will need the help whether he knows it or not. The conferences are always nutty and no useful person goes unpunished! Cool for Lachezar. Is he back in Europe or what?

From what I understand of boats, a spinnaker is the triangle shaped sail in the forward section of a sailboat. So when you say, "like the front of a sailboat's spinnaker," do you mean a tringular shape that, when lying on its back, is taller (thicker) in the middle than at the sides and tips of the triangle? If so, how did the student deal with coming onto and off of the triangle as it spun in a circle?

jerry flanary wrote: From what I understand of boats, a spinnaker is the triangle shaped sail in the forward section of a sailboat. So when you say, "like the front of a sailboat's spinnaker," do you mean a tringular shape that, when lying on its back, is taller (thicker) in the middle than at the sides and tips of the triangle? If so, how did the student deal with coming onto and off of the triangle as it spun in a circle?

That sounds like a fair description. Another way to think about the shape is, start with a solid piece of glass with a dome shaped top surface, cut a triangle out of the middle, polish the top curve and the side walls flat.

He just held the grinder still and the glass rotated under it. The grinder is what made the glass spin. The potter's wheel was actually just free spinning, though I think it would have been fine if it was on low speed. The corners of the glass just spun through as he ground them down.

ch

hi hoknok, I think you"ll find a die grinder far too fast. if you go air try for a drill head, either straight or right angle are available through air tool places. I think the foredom could be the go unless you do a hell of a lot of grinding. they take 1/4" down to 3/32" shafts.Bob at hisglass had diamond burrs on his site at a good price.gem stone/lapidary club shows and suppliers are great for info and sanding parts.opal is similar in hardness. I've seen potters wheels often used for grinders, with adaptions. no bolts in top. I use a bucket with a side bottom hole for a plastic tube, an inline tap, more tube and wire wrapped around it for guiding and controlling water drips onto my work.always go the road less travelled. peter cummings.