Review: Creative Industries Clay Boss potters wheel
ray
::21 jan 2007 :: 11:01am
Given my current obsession with pottery and my limited ability to get out to the local co-op, I decided to get a wheel of my own, the Clay Boss made by Creative Industries. It had arrived a week earlier but when I turned it on, I noticed the wheel head wobbled up and down about 1/16th of an inch. Not good, I thought. But I somehow I can just imagine my Dad’s voice in my head telling me to just whack it with a hammer. Ha. So I called my local potter friends. Not good, they said. So I called the manufacturer and thus, the return call from Sherry in technical support as I wander the dairy aisle while the freezing rain starts outside. I explain my situation with the wheel and am then instructed to find the high side of the wheel, mark that point on the wheel, take a rubber mallet and strike it firmly. And if I don’t have a rubber mallet, lay a 2×4 across it and hit it with a regular hammer.
I kid you not: whack it with a hammer.
“Sherry,” I said. “I’m not sure how comfortable I am taking a hammer to something I just paid $500 for.”
I was then assured that’s what they do to get it to settle into the bearings or something. I asked how level I should hope to get it or what the ideal was. I was told they go for a tolerance of 5/1000.On the drive home, it occurred to me it might be hard to get that sort of tolerance with my hammer.
Fast forward a week (I have two kids; everything takes a week to do.): I’m in my basement applying judiciously placed whacks from the afformentioned hammer. After several tries, I have no joy. The Clay Boss wheel head continues to revolve on it’s merry, wobbily way. This sucks.
As a side note, it might not be a wise technical support move to instruct a customer to take a hammer to a frustrating problem. Or maybe it is.
Mind you, everything else about the wheel seems fairly decent for an entry-level wheel. adjustable risers on the feet for extra height and leveling the unit on an uneven floor (though testing for level is a challenge, as the deck of the unit just beneath the wheel head has a raised lip edge that flairs out towards the corner–good luck putting your fluid level on that). The online advertisements for the wheel indicated a steel head. Perhaps there is steel under there somewhere, but the top seems to be some sort of resin substance and there are dark marks on the wheel head where the supporting ribs meet the top. Unsightly. The foot pedal works reasonably well, but there does seem to be a stutter sometimes at low speeds, the wheel head jerks just a little. And sometimes you have to flick the switch a couple of times to get it to turn on. Sigh.
Anyway, I’d read good things about the Creative Industries customer service, so hopefully this will all end well. Stay tuned. If I have to pay for return shipping on something that was defective out of the box, I’m going to be pissed.
[...] Witness the evidence of my advancing age: I've recently taken up pottery. It's relaxing and lets me put my mind elsewhere, even if that other where of which I speak is the rapidly spinning wall of compressed, wet dirt. I suppose, for me, it's almost meditative. I even checked out a book on the subject at the local library. Oh. That's right. Still got the same President, so I guess I meant to say 'libary.' [...]
I should have made an update a looooong time ago. Shortly after this post I received my new wheel. While there is the slightest bit of a 'shimmy' in the wheelhead (i.e. the wheelhead is not _exactly, perfectly_ centered, everything is very level and there is no wobble. The pedal could have a little bit better feel to it, but for the price I am very satisfied. One caveat, the catch pan could be bigger, but that's not a deal-killer. I've been throwing on it since and am quite pleased.
And by 'shimmy' it should be noted that it's no worse than you might experience with a bat in place.