During PlyAway, I was the lucky winner of DM Fibers‘ wheel giveaway. I was blown away! Thank you to DM Fibers and to Louet, I brought home a brand new Louet S17 wheel. The S17 is very close to their S10, but comes unfinished, ready for the creative artist to decorate.
It didn’t take me long to decide that I would use this wheel as a teaching wheel. The S17 uses Irish tension, which means I have the option to show Irish tension on the S17 or Scotch tension on my Ashford Joy II. The opens up a whole bunch of new opportunities. I struggled for about five seconds to decide what design I wanted on my wheel. If this was my teaching wheel, it needed my logo.
My husband, reiner72, a miniature model painter and experienced airbrush artist, agreed to help me with the design. First, we masked the entire wheel with low-tack contact paper. Contact paper is often used to line the bottom of shelves and can be found at most hardware stores. We used clear contact paper, but any design should do the job. We double and triple checked to make sure that we had covered the correct side of the wheel.
Next, I mounted the wheel on a ladder. This was probably the trickiest step. We have a projector and I needed to position the wheel in front of the screen. I then enlarged the round version of my logo and adjusted it on the screen until it was centered on the wheel and the correct size. I had to trace the design onto the contact paper. I am not the cleanest tracer. That said, reiner72 was able to make up for my messy sketch work.
Reiner72 used an exacto blade to very carefully cut out the stencil without cutting into the wood. I was impressed by how nicely he did, especially with how messy my line work was. Once he cut out the stencil, he sprayed the entire area with a black primer. While we had finished the wheel with an oil finish, this acrylic primer would give the best possible surface to airbrush on. He then masked off certain portions at a time before airbrushing the colors.
Finally, he removed the contact paper and the design was revealed. I am very happy with how it turned out. He touched up the few areas that weren’t to his liking and then we clear coated the wheel and all the wooden pieces with a glossy polyurethane.
Finally, I put the wheel together. She is ready to go! She just needs a name and a maiden spin. What would you name this wheel?
