I used to make these porcelain gumball machines when doing craft shows. They were a hit at attracting people to the booth, but never really sold well. I just recently made another one in hopes to attract some people to my etsy site. It’s for sale: http://khphillips.etsy.com.
At the bottom of this post is a “How to Make a Porcelain Gumball Machine”.
Detail Shot
Some other ones I’ve done in the past, but have sold.
How to Make a Porcelain Gumball Machine:
1. Throw all your pieces (The lid, the hopper, the “chute”, and handle channel, the turning knob, and the plate base) and allow to stiffen up. Most pieces are bottomless cylinders. Make sure the hole in the bottom of the hopper and the top of the chute are big enough to allow your candie through, maybe a little bigger
2. Slick the pieces together. With the handle channel, stick it to the “chute”, and use a small piece PVC pipe to to mold it around, you want it to be just a little bigger that the size of your dowel since it will shrink. You can always get one size smaller dowel if it doesn’t fit, but make sure you can still drill the hole in it. In the knob, trim a little recess in the bottom to hold the dowel.
3. Fire and glaze.
4. The piece that allows the candies through is an eye bolt that is smaller and will fit in the chute. Stuck to the eye bolt is foam circles that have sticky backs, You stick them around your eye as seen in the picture below. 4-sided for gumbals, 2 sided for bigger candies. Make sure the circles are slightly bigger than the inside of the chute for a nice tight fit.
5. drill a hole in your dowel to accept the eye bolt.
6. Put the eye bolt piece inside the chute, and hot glue it into the dowel. Hot glue the turning knog to the other end of the dowel.
7. fille with candies and test it out.
Click for a bigger image.
