Wheeling machines

[Ian Williams]

I have an inexpensive Asian made English wheel $600, which is about 300 pounds, my friend Joss has a big cast Edwards machine. The comparison between the two in use is interesting, certainly mine is far less rigid than the Edwards so needs a slightly adapted technique but you can still do some good work. Mine also came with a wide range of lower anvils from flat to quite tight radius which is useful, add a rubber band on the top wheel and you can form single curvature panels which is also very useful . You just have to accept that you may need to make a few improvements to the cheap units, the yoke for the bottom wheel had a bit more movement than I would have liked which affected accuracy of your tracking, but that was easily shimmed to fix. Buy one and have a play!