Restoring An Old Venco Pottery Wheel from 1980

In this video I work on restoring a Venco No. 5 Pottery Wheel. Venco is an Australian brand, and their products are known for being high quality and are in use all over the world. They specialise in pottery wheels and clay pug mills.

Being a 42 year old wheel, it needed a full overhaul, but for the most part the components remained in great condition. The most common issue with these wheels and the one I encountered with this one was the plastic grommets that support the drive assembly had disintegrated. This causes the whole assembly to become loose and rattly, and in this case the wheel also lost the alignment between the motor cone and flywheel, and was no longer usable.

The previous owner had tried to repair this and replace the grommets with garden hose. To do things properly, I machined new ones on the lathe from UHMWP (Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene). Old oxidised brown paint was cleaned up, cut and polished and left original. The top basin repainted, new grommets fitted, and everything reassembled. After all the work, the wheel was looking and performing like a brand new one!

Hope you enjoy watching!

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