Twisted

[sawtooth-9]

A little background :
Many years ago ( too many ) I met a young lady who was busy knitting at a railway station in Hazlemere Surrey. Turns out that she had made her own spinning wheel from English beech and elm. It was a copy of her mother's antique wheel and was quite beautifully built. She had never done any woodwork before. After we were married, we had always planned to make wheels in Australia but life got in the way.
The spinning and knitting has continued.
The spinning is ultra lace weight and the knitting is done on very fine needles ( around 1.5 - 2.5mm ) and the knitting is mostly done double stranded ( twined knitting / Tvaandstickning - an old Swedish way of knitting ).
This style of knitting has its own issues, such as tightening/loosening the ply and tangling of the two strands.

So, over the past couple of years I have had a project of building some equipment suitable for very fine fibres, which is not available anywhere we can find.
Also decided to build a second spinning wheel and re-build the original antique wheel ( which we think was a Welsh flax wheel probably built around 1820 )

I will take some pics and post details of the building if there is any interest?
The workshop
The spinning wheels
The combined skein and ball winder
The whirling bowls

 

[Orraloon]

Always interested in how old things were made.
Regards
John

 

[johnnyb]

I looove such niche and fascinating information.

 

[yetloh]

Count me in. I love wip projects in all their variety. My wife will be interested too, she is into needlecraft and woody/engineering stuff for me.

Jim

 

[sawtooth-9]

Hi Jim
will post some pics soon
These are not wip - rather completed projects - and I didn't take pics along the way but will give a description of how they were done
cheers

 

[bobblezard]

Yup, I'm definitely interested in seeing this. Always thought I might make a spinning wheel for my mum but never got round to it.
I lived near Midhurst for a while, spent quite a lot of time at Hazlemere Station waiting for the train to London.

 

[Tris]

Definitely interested, messing about with spinning wheels is fast becoming a new hobby although more for weaving than knitting

 

[sawtooth-9]

First off - just a few pics of the workshop.
This is a follow-on from a previous post on the Wadkin restoration.
The Colchester metal lathe was also a complete re-build, including the headstock.
Being located in the bush, I do not have three phase power available, so put in a 20 KVA generator which can power everything in the shed.
The final pic. is the workshop supervisor - always curious as to what's going on !
If we finally get some sunshine, I will start taking pics of the spinning wheels

 

[Phill05]

My kind of workshop and a long time ago I used to have the very same model of Wadkin lathe, looking forward to seeing the woodwork.

 

[pe2dave]

It must be nice to have lots of room.
Also curious about the loom!

 

[sawtooth-9]

The year was 1973. The location was the teachers training college, Exeter.
Herself produced a copy of her mothers spinning wheel.
For someone who had never done any woodwork in her life, quite a remarkable result.

 

[sawtooth-9]

At that time, the glues were not great - and this was built using urea formaldehyde, which goes to powder over time.
So about 10 years ago, I took the wheel apart and re assembled using structural epoxy resin

 

[sawtooth-9]

Her parents organised someone to make the metal components, but these were never really satisfactory.
The wheel itself had some issues, in that the segments were only butt joined using UF resin - so the segments separated. At the time I did not have a wood lathe, so did my best to re assemble the wheel, with limited success ( bit too much wobble ! )
Now that I have the right gear I decided it was time to get the wheel running true and modify the metal components.
The wheel was set up on a faceplate, with the inner circumference running as true as possible. I then bored a 1 1/4 inch hole through the elm hub.
The hub insert was made from NT ironwood with a 1/2 inch square hole. A dummy shaft was made and the outside of the hub insert turned to size. This was then glued into the hub with epoxy resin.

 

[sawtooth-9]

A new shaft was machined from 1/2 inch stainless steel key material.
The throw plate was cut from 5 mm stainless steel plate and welded to the shaft.
The Flyer shaft was made from 5/16 stainless rod with a 5/16 inch left hand BSF thread for the flyer pulley. The fibre feed head was machined from 3/4 inch stainless bar with the cross hole milled in at 45 degrees

 

[sawtooth-9]

So now this wheel is running sweet

 

[sawtooth-9]

Before I attempted the re build of my wife's wheel, I thought it might be wise to build a second, just in case !
This one is made from Australian River Red Gum - rather highly figured. It is a dense hard wood, so this wheel is heavier than her original ( English Beech ), so it will be good for plying.
This is the wheel where I tested out the modifications including running Lignum Vitae bearings.

 

[sawtooth-9]

The original wheel ( probably around 1820's ) has come back to us.
It ended up in poor condition, so another re-build, with all the new modifications.
Here is a pic of all three working wheels together - covers about 200 years of spinning history

 

[Tris]

Wow, building a wheel is one of those things on the to-do list, and that looks an excellent design.
I've only ever used a scotch tension wheel so far so it would be interesting to try a double drive and see what the difference is

 

[Droogs]

Outstanding work there, what's the chance you made up some drawings along the way?

 

[sawtooth-9]

Outstanding work there, what's the chance you made up some drawings along the way?

Can do some basic sketches and dimensions if you really want to build one.
The wheel and flyer are the most difficult to do well
Do you have wood and metal working equipment ?