Pottery wheel

Recently I went on a visit to a few early childhood centers with my work, at one centre they had lots of children's pottery on display, it was glazed and fired and looked amazing.

Latter I remembered using my granddads pottery wheel as a kid. Thought there must be some free plans to build one on the net somewhere, so the search began and a few hours latter I found these plans for a Portable Pottery Wheel by John Atkeson and with a few modifacations and $20 latter I had a child sized working pottery wheel.

This is my Three year old son having a turn spinning the wheel.

First we tried felt pens on paper,
it was a good way to get them  familiar with kicking the wheel

Spin the wheel as fast as you can, then using a pipette squirt some paint.
This made for some cool art.

We watched some YouTube videos too see how it all works.

Then got our hands dirty

And made some beautiful pots

Some scaffolding was needed but each pot came out unique. 

Now to find some were to glaze and fire them.

If you would like the final measurements I used please ask.

Ps I used recycled timber for the build and the $20 cost was for the lazy Susan bearing and half of the bolts.

If new materials were used it would cost a lot more.