Adjustable Pottery Machine Machine Turntable Clamp and Ceramic Art Repair Ceramic Trimming Tool Sculpting Repair, Teaching Suitable for Beginners and Professionals

Sure, you could slap down $300 for a Griffin, but why bother unless you are running a commercial pottery production line. This unit works just as well, and is perfect for smaller wheels without the need to remove the plastic splash guard from your wheel.For $55, this unit is a steal for what it does. Most others are 75-100 dollars and made for large wheels. This unit is specifically designed to work with a range of the common hobby grade wheels from Vevor, et al, out of China as they are, with few exceptions, all 12 inch or smaller wheels.I really do not understand all the poor reviews complaining about the unit being plastic, poor instructions, etc.1) All brands are plastic, it's just a question of what plastic. This one is ABS, very well designed and produced, and the wheel is fully assembled in the box, so all you have to do is dial the bottom side in for the wheel you are using, secure the three lock clamps, add the top clamps and you are ready to load greenware to be trimmed and adjusted to your desire.2) As for the instructions included (with photos of each step and each component), this product is easy to understand and use IF you have ever used a trimming wheel on a pottery wheel before. If you read them and follow them, and have any understanding of pottery trimming wheels, you will have no issues with setting up this wheel. The insutructions are both clear, and fine.What is not clear in the product description is that there is a complete set of different lengths of aluminum poles for the rubber clamps for holding higher profile pottery objects. So you have a full range of lengths and the poles are super easy to change out. They come in a small zipper bag that holds accessories for the wheel. So this unit really is a functional equivalent to a top end Griffon unit, at a much lower price and perfect for wheels that are 12 inches or under (mine is 11 inches). Most trimming wheels offered on Amazon are designed for 14 inch wheels so they are going to be too big on smaller wheels (even though they do adjust down) unless you remove your capture tray from your wheel (which is not a good idea if you do not want trimmings sliding/flinging all over the place while you are working.

Seems like a great idea, but the instructions are vague and unhelpful, and when I finally got it set up and secured, or so I thought, the whole thing came apart while it was spinning! I wish this worked....

I’ve finally got it together so it will lock onto a bat and the top sliders will move in to secure a pot. I resume the screws are to lock them down to secure the pot. I haven’t actually got anything ready to trim yet.The paper instructions are not very useful. Watch the videos. On both top and bottom, line up the sliding inserts with the corresponding slot in the middle disk, that will allow it to be pulled in when you rotate the disk. On the top ones, make sure the screw is not in so far as to block it from fully sliding into the slot.I think it will do the job, but it’s very plastic-y and doesn’t feel solid when I’m setting it up. Maybe it will surprise me when I actually use it, hopefully I’ll remember to update this when I do.

I honestly don't understand why this is not more highly rated. Mine works perfectly and I use it all the time for a variety of sizes and shapes of different pots. A lot of people are complaining about the instructions, but it's not rocket science to figure this thing out -- it probably took me 5 minutes to figure out how it is put together, and I've never used one of these before and didn't even know exactly how it was supposed to work. It's like a third the cost of the Griffin, which I've never used to be fair; but I literally can't find anything wrong with it! I would definitely recommend this product. I see a lot of people in the pottery community online who love to complain about the flood of reasonably priced, high quality products on the market these days without ever having tried them themselves. Not everybody has thousands of dollars to start their own studio; and the availability and quality of all of these "cheap" products I've been using are not only sufficient for my needs; but they far exceed my expectations. Oh my, how will I ever survive without spending thousands of dollars on a Shimpo/Brent/Griffin product?! It turns out, pretty dang well!

The idea is good and it works holding the pottery while trimming. The directions were ridiculous. It took one a day to figure it out and yes, we both hold master's degrees. I would buy a sturdier griffin because I'm not sure this will hold up to a lot of pieces. Anyway, I can't comment on the workings of it because I haven't used it too long. Not sure I'd purchase it again due to the directions.

I used the name brand version this week for the first time and loved it. But I did not want to spend the money for the name brand. I purchased this on Tuesday, it was delivered on Thursday. Could not be happier. My piece was small, so I did not use the arms. There were small intentions in my piece but that was from me twisting it so hard. I do not see this as an issue, it is simply learning the tool and the moisture content of the piece. Far easier to fix than clay scraps when trimming with clay securement.This was not difficult to set up. Tip... you do need to install all braces before turning. Otherwise the braces will get out of sync.The only other problem I see is where I will store my 100's of pieces now that I can crank them out like a machine and trim like a pro.

The instructions are completely incoherent and wrong. It says to “pull the lock in the middle” but there is no lock in the middle. And there are no little symbols indicating which one the lock is. The instructions sound like complete gibberish. It collapsed while I was using it. I assume it works if you can make sense of the nonsense instructions but unfortunately, they’re completely nonsense.