How To Make a $50 Pottery Wheel (HowToLou.com)

hi I'm Lou and today I'm going to show you how to make this pottery wheel with a ceiling fan motor and a plastic bucket for about 50 bucks here are some of the major parts we'll need a ceiling fan like this a plastic five-gallon bucket like this a piece of half-inch thick plywood that's big enough to fit two buckets on it side by side if you can get treated plywood that's great because we're gonna get it wet otherwise you can just paint it and a large plastic peanut butter jar you also need a power cord you can get this by cutting it off an old appliance that you're throwing away or just buy a $2.00 extension cord and cut off the end a few small pieces of scrap lumber and various screws and machine screws some electrical tape and a bunch of wire nuts what we really mean is the motor inside the fan so what you're gonna have to do is take off the lighting fixture take off the fan blades and then take off this decorative shell there's two pieces there's bolts that going into it all the way around take those off and it'll all come apart you'll end up with just the motor once you get the motor out of the fan it should look like this it has some power wires on this side and electronics on this side and there's a connector here that holds it all together and I just took a wire cutters and cut both sides and took that connector out because we're gonna have to pull these wires back through all onto this side if you pull here the power wire should come right through getting these wires pulled from here all the way through to here is a bit tricky because they're anchored right here in the middle what I'm gonna do is take a piece of wire with a hook on the end and shove it through and then on the other end I'll hook a piece of string about two foot long string and then pull it back through I've peeled these wires back a little bit and twisted them into a knob there now I'm going to take this string and form it into a noose and put it the end of that knob now I'm gonna use that to pull this wire back through to the other side now we need to reattach the electronics just line up all your wire colors so there's a pink strip that with the wire strippers wind it together with the other pink like this and then put a wire knot on it to protect it and you'll do that for all these other wires as well your white power wire gets connected to the white wire here the black power wire gets connected to the black here and the black and white can just be thrown away that was for a light which we're not using anymore when you have it all wired back together there should be no wires on this side of the motor and all the electronics and the power wires on this side of the motor if you're worried that the wiring is going to be too confusing for you just take a picture of what it was like before we cut out the connector on that side and it's just wired up the same over here with all the same colors there's one peculiar thing about ceiling fan motors they're almost inside out a normal motor has the outside stationary and the inside spins we're on a ceiling fan motor the inside is stationary and the outside spins so when you go to test your motor to make sure your wiring is correct make sure you hold the inside not the outside or your wires will get all tangled up it should look like this our pottery wheel is going to get bolted to the top of this motor so this inner spindle is in the way and no longer needed since I pulled the wires through so I'm just going to take a hacksaw and cut that off it would be a really good idea to have a vacuum running while you do this so that none of the metal shavings get into the motor you might use some sandpaper or a dremel and take off that last little edge next we're going to make the pottery wheel and a round support for inside the bucket so take your bucket and put it on your board and trace out two big circles now cut these two circles out with a handsaw hacksaw or any appropriate power tool now we need to find the Centers of our circles so tape two pieces of paper together and put the bucket on it and trace it and cut out your traced circle now fold your paper circle exactly in half and in half again when you unfold it that spot right there is going to be the center of the circle so lay it on top of your board and tap a nail right there to mark it pick your nicer wood circle and save it as the pottery wheel the second one we'll use as a motor support my motor looks like this and the way I'm going to attach it is to take this off and bolt this plate directly to this here's a slightly different style fan motor and kind of the same thing applies we have to cut a hole for this to fit in there and then bolt this wooden plate onto this mount first I'll take this metal plate off by unscrewing this nut then I'll unscrew the plate itself from the motor now I'll drill a 3/4 inch hole in my plate now I'm gonna drill four holes in this plate for these screws to go through looks like one's already started there for me I want both this metal plate on here but these tabs are in the way so I'm going to cut them off now I can put my wooden support plate on the motor and put the metal disc back on now I'll put a screw in this hole and lift up the plate and screw it in and then put the rest of the screws in too although these screws aren't going to be exposed it's probably a good idea to cut off the sharp points just in case now my motors bolted on to the support plate next I'm going to need to the distance between the actual spinning disk and the support plate down here in my case that is total of five and a half inches from top to bottom now add a half inch to that distance since mine was five and a half my total will be six and then mark in the bucket at six inches on four different spots that are about ninety degrees apart now take four scraps of wood like this line up the top of each board with your line and put screws in from the outside of the bucket to hold the boards in place and your motor and support should lay in like this now we need to find the bolt holes so take a piece of paper and lay it on top of the motor and rub it with a pencil or crayon and you should be able to start seeing right there for instance two bolt holes you want all the bolt holes in the center find the center of your pattern and stick a nail through it and then put that nail in the center of your wooden wheel give it a tap to make sure it stays in place each fan blade on the motor had two mounting holes but we're only going to use one of those in each position so just go around the circle right in the center and tap each one of these to make a mark on the wood plate now you can take your pattern off you'll probably have to make a special trip to the hardware store to get these screws and take your fan motor with you so you can make sure they fit but you want some screws that will fit in here and have a flat head like this and also make them be stainless both of my fan motors take 1/4 by 20 by 3/4 so probably that's what yours will too now using a drill bit that's slightly larger than your screw in my case this is a quarter inch bit drill all five holes around the outside of your wheel now take a slightly larger bit that'll match the Flair of the screw and drill in just a little bit to countersink it now put in your wheel line it up with the screw holes and screw it in tighten the screws down until they're just flush with the surface of the wood now we need to connect the electronics back up so we allow flip it over we want to mount this peanut butter jar lid right here so we're going to have to cut a hole in here to fit that and we can just do that with a knife I've got two holes here so I'll put this on and then screw in through the plastic into those holes hold it down connect all the electronics back in all these electronics are going to get captured inside this peanut butter jar and this pull chain is going to stick out the side so we need to drill a 3/8 inch hole right here in the side of the peanut butter jar and stick the pull chain mechanism through using a drill bit that's about the same size as your power cord drill a hole in the side of the bucket about five inches up and right next to one of the wood supports we put in earlier and feed your power cord in through that hole pull it all the way through so we have plenty of slack to work with using the same drill bit drill a hole right in the bottom center of your peanut butter jar and stick your power cord in there finally connect the power cord to your loose black and white wires you'll notice that one side of the power cord has a slight white line on it that's the one that goes to the white side and the black goes to the black and of course wire nuts as usual and stuff all your electronics and wires into your peanut butter jar and pull the slack out of the power cord and screw it onto the lid now measure down from the top wheel all the way to your switch which in my case is about eight inches on the opposite side of the bucket where the power cord comes in I want to drill another hole up front here to be one inch more than the last thing we measured so that in our case would be nine inches and drill it again fairly close to the board in there this hole only has to be big enough for a string to go through so I just used an eighth inch bit tie a piece of string to the pull chain about two feet in length feed the string through that little hole you might want to tie a small washer or nut on the end of your string so you don't accidentally pull it through unscrew your top plate and take it off note where your pull chain comes out underneath here and mark a spot on top of the board that represents that now set the whole thing down inside your bucket make sure you're not sitting on top of any cords on the way down also make sure your pull cord is lined up with that line that we just drew on the board now screw your bottom board into the four wooden supports on the side screw your top wheel back on pull your power cord out from the bucket plug it in pull your pull chain and your wheel should start right up with it running you might want to draw a few circles on here to show you'll know where to Center your clay let's see how this works well I'm not a very good Potter but you get the idea thank you for watching and good luck making your pottery wheel you

Channel: HowToLou

Views: 618,635

Rating: 4.8425074 out of 5

Keywords: Potter's Wheel, Do It Yourself (Website Category), pottery

Id: NpimQeM4zYY

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 12 2013