Tibetan Prayer-wheel Made by Plywood

n the Tibetan Buddhism you will find prayer-wheels on stupas, monasteries and other special places. Believers rotate them for praying.

We build this for a friend of us, a Buddhism teacher.

We construct the prayer-wheel with CorelDraw, The measure for the housetop and cylinder by the classic way with paper and hand calculator.

The wooden parts by plywood can now be engraved and cut with an CO2 laser.
But if you like, you can do it also with an scroll saw.

For a good finish we use a fine sandpaper and coat the parts with wood stain. So you can better see the wood structure.

For an easier an thin layer we use a sponge (and gloves). That is the easiest and fastest way we know to paint on wood.

The letters must be colorful, we used spray paint.

Now the letters can be glued on the sides of the cylinder.

We also engraved the letters on the parts, so it is easier to find the right position.

Inside the prayer-wheel must be a paper strip with mantras.

We just print it 1008 times on a paper and glue them together.

Die side parts can glue on the round bottom plate.

The paper must be winded in clockwise direction, so the mantras later spin in the right direction.

Put it inside and glue the top of the cylinder.

On the baseplate we glue some wooden washers for the axis.

On this axis later we will place the cylinder.

On the top we put some more washers.

The four sides and the top of the box can be places and glue together.

To fix the axis we glue a washer and a circle on the top of the axis.

On the bottom we glue some cork, so the prayer-wheel can’t slip away.

For fixing to glue the parts of the housetop we used a ducktape.
And removed it after drying.

And now the last part gluing, the rooftop on the box.

The tibetan prayer-wheel is finished.

Hope you will enjoy our instruction.

Greetings from Germany
Ruth and Thomas