/ˈpaʊns wiːl/

Pounce wheel

noun · tool

What it is

A pounce wheel is a rotary perforator. Its business end is a toothed wheel — a metal disc with sharp radial points — spinning freely on a spindle set in a handle. Run along a line, the teeth punch a row of tiny holes at regular intervals, so a single stroke pricks a whole line at once instead of one hole at a time with a needle. The tooth pitch determines how close the holes sit; finer wheels give a smoother dotted trail.

Once the pattern is perforated, the artist uses it exactly as any pricked cartoon: laid on a surface and dusted with powder for pouncing, or laid over a fresh sheet and pressed so the points leave marks. In dressmaking the same tool is called a tracing wheel and is often run over carbon or wax transfer paper so the wheel deposits a coloured line on the fabric below rather than only perforating it.

Etymology

The name pairs "pounce," the powder dusted through pricked holes, with "wheel," the rotating perforator. It is also called a tracing wheel or pattern wheel in the sewing trades. The underlying act it speeds up — pricking a cartoon — is documented in Renaissance workshop practice, described by Cennino Cennini in Il Libro dell'Arte around 1400, though a needle was the earlier instrument; the geared wheel is a later mechanisation of the same task.¹

Examples in use

A tailor runs a pounce wheel along a paper pattern over carbon paper to mark darts and seam lines onto cloth. A sign painter perforates a lettering layout so it can be pounced onto a wall. A restorer copies an old cartoon by wheeling over it onto fresh paper. All of these are physical transfer aids; a modern artist can skip the perforating entirely with the free Grid Maker Pro web tool, which stays free forever in the browser, or the separate paid AR app, which locks the reference over real paper through the phone camera.