If you are like me, I'm constantly finding things to build in my wood shop. Wood working is by far one of the most rewarding hobbies I know of and I can release a weeks worth of stress in one evening in the shop.

And searching the internet you will find a wealth of project plans free to whoever wants to download them. But sometimes there are projects I'm wanting to build that can't be found over the net. My solution is to create my own plans from whatever research I've done on the subject I want to build. One of my professions is that of drafter. A drafter (used to be called draftsman) is someone who draws mechanical and architectural plans professionally, so at least I'm qualified to do the task.

One of the things I wasn't able to find plans for was a water wheel. I own a farm and wanted to pump water from my spring to the barn without installing an electric pump. So I researched online to get all the facts, decided what size wheel would work in my spring, and started making a prototype drawing. After a few days drawing was able to come up with not only the water wheel but the braces and stand and also the pump frame to mount on the bottom of the stream.

From these drawings I was able to also build cut sheets for each part of the wheel and then start fabricating. Within a day or two I had a functional water wheel. After you build a concept drawing, you can dissect the drawing to come up with all the parts and their dimensions. That's by far better than using the old trial and error method many attempt in the shop. And the wheel works fantastic by the way.