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I knew at the time because I can remember, the potters wheel was a study of the most basic of machines. My first study of the machine was the needle grinding
machines in the factory I had worked. The concept here was a large wheel on the bottom, very heavy powered by foot, a shaft connecting it to a smaller wheel on the top, which was the platform for creation with the hands in conjunction with the mind, which was the source of the form. I created the
frame to hold the two in place.
A major problem here with Marko was he wouldn't put tools back where they were suppose to be kept. I would have to spend half my time looking for tools. These wheels were labor intensive, with chiselling of slots by hand with a hammer, something on the order of thirty slots. As a business, a radial arm saw or table saw with dado blades would have been the way to go; but we would have had to buy these on credit. I asked Marko what he thought. It is one piece of advice I have thereafter adhered to. "Never go into debt", he said. Once in debt, I would be required to build wheels whether I wanted to or not. Either that or get a job.
The work Marko did was adequate. It was just that every time he bought materials he bought crap. He did everything the cheap way. If I made the frame and he made the concrete wheel, he made it two inches thinner instead of the four inches thick and hundred pounds heavier the customer thought they were getting. If he built the frame he bought cheap worm eaten wood. If he bought the spin-wheel bearings they were second rate.
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