Waterwheel

Years ago an architect friend asked me to build a large waterwheel for one of his homes in southern Oklahoma. After meeting with him and on my way back home I stopped to pump some gas and as I looked up the canopy had on it, warning 12’ clearence. The wheel was to be 13’ in diameter and I hadn’t really thought about what that meant untill I looked up and realized it would be 1’ taller then the canopy clearence.

Figureing out how to build this beast outside, the shop was to small, and how to build so it could ship. I had to build it so that another carpenter I didn’t know would have an easy time assembling.

The material I was told to use was clear heart redwood, cypress would have been better, I decided on the size of segments using a 1/2’ baltic birch loose tenon and poly glue. Each side of the wheel is able to haul in 2 parts. The table is 2 sets of new ladders on sawhorses and leveled to a nats arse inorder to keep the sides in perfect plane.

I frankly found all this fun. Anytime I’m put out of my comfort zone as to my craft I find to be great experiences.

Well here’s a series of pic’s showing the table, 6 1/2’ router swing arm and the final results.

This got published in Fine Homebuilding last month. I like to brag My work was on 2 pages of the magazine but truth is my picture was in the crease of the 2 pages.

-- Just A Guy With A Hammer