English Wheel- I'm confused

Can't help you with the wheel but I think the edge you're talking about is called a "wired edge" where you roll the edge around a wire. This link gives an explanation:

Search for the word "wire" on that page and you'll see where someone asked how to do a wired edge followed by instructions from Ron Covell.

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

To answer your second question first. There are 2 types of folded edge. The one is just a 180 deg fold which gives a nice rounded edge to the metal. The other is where the metal is wrapped around a wire. This gives a greater diameter to the rounded edge. With your wheel, you are pushing the metal along in front of the wheel and stretching it that way rather than forcing it out sideways. Try rolling pastry or plastacine to see the effect. You aren't doing anything wrong. I would add that my experience of wheels is Very limited and others may know better.

John

It's a bit like a blacksmith's fuller or set hammer

If you strike with a flat-faced hammer, the metal spreads equally in all directions. For drawing down metal in one direction alone, a wedge-shaped fuller is used instead. There's spreading as you describe, in an axis along the wedge (perpendicular to the face), but negligibly so across the axis.

An English wheel is a wide wheel, so that it has this same wedging action. If it's narrow (or if you put a narrow wheel in there), then you get stretching in all directions, which is obviously less controllable.

Wired edges, rolled edges, or beaded edges.

Beaded edges are just a fold, and still rather narrow. To form a neat one, fold the whole edge to 90° and then fold the whole lot down with your softest mallet.

Wired edges are rolled around an internal wire, which is left in there afterwards. Commonly seen on baker's loaf tins, the wire also reinforces the corners. Start it on a round-edged stake, then work over the wire with a mallet.

Rolled edges look like wired edges, but without the wire. You need a roller swaging machine to form them, not a mallet.

-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods

part 1, the contact point of the wheel will stretch omni-directionally, but the movement is linear so it stretches along that plane, but figure in gravity and the metal will droop omni-directionally in other words how many times you wheel over an area, one direction it will stretch more clear as mud? part 2 a smooth edge formed by folding over a 1/2" or so, is called a folder over edge or hem edge if it has a wire inside a wired edge. more info on wheeling can be had at

and and the metalshapers and metalshaping groups on yahoo

take care!

tt