One Surprise After Another...
I feel I should apologize that there was no blog entry last night (I know how you all sit around with baited breath waiting for it and cry when it's late - ha!) but my front loader washing machine decided to malfunction and filled itself with water until the door burst open, flooding the kitchen, hardwood floor and all. Fortunately lots of it ran down the walls into the basement so there wasn't as much on the hardwood to clean up as there might have been - we're guessing 6-7 gallons worth or so - the first time. The second time it happened was because we were so absorbed with clean-up (pun intended) that no one noticed it was refilling itself. Fortunately we were right there and got the door closed faster than the first time (when we had all been in another room and heard a very strange sound). I had to shut off the tap behind it and unplug it to get it to stop filling. Essentially it took every single bath towel in the house to sop it all up so this morning three huge laundry baskets of them had to be carted into town to the laundromat. Silly me, thinking our house could escape the great Saskatchewan floods of 2010! 
Anyways, the real, and best surprise of the weekend is that my younger sister, the reciprocal enabler came through on her threat to send me her MIL's old spinning wheel! Now being a non-spinner she wasn't able to tell me much about it in our previous conversations so I wasn't sure what to expect. All I knew is it was old and her MIL bought it when she took her spinning class. It has no maker's mark, brand name or any other identifying information except that it was made by a guy from Kamsack Sask. and his buddy Crazy Harry was the one who painted the bottles (and what can you do with a bit of info like that?). Feel free to jump in any time, Barb, oh frequent traveler to Kamsack....
Anyways, the real, and best surprise of the weekend is that my younger sister, the reciprocal enabler came through on her threat to send me her MIL's old spinning wheel! Now being a non-spinner she wasn't able to tell me much about it in our previous conversations so I wasn't sure what to expect. All I knew is it was old and her MIL bought it when she took her spinning class. It has no maker's mark, brand name or any other identifying information except that it was made by a guy from Kamsack Sask. and his buddy Crazy Harry was the one who painted the bottles (and what can you do with a bit of info like that?). Feel free to jump in any time, Barb, oh frequent traveler to Kamsack....
It couldn't be disassembled so the box was pretty big. I felt such a mixture of surprise and delight as we pulled it out! Single treadle, double drive (new concept for me) and absurdly overbuilt for the miniscule bobbin - I'll eat my hat if it holds 2 ounces!
Then I sat down with some white pencil roving and tried to do a bit of spinning. I found out why my sister's MIL gave up on spinning! No doubt about it, it's a "real" spinning wheel but it doesn't treadle smoothly because there is almost no clearance between the spoked wheel and the frame. I'm hoping if I wax it that will improve. Essentially it's almost impossible to get a good rhythm going. This wheel also wants to spin very, very fine singles, which is good because the bobbin is so tiny, however, there are a couple other issues besides the severe drag on the wheel. There is a large chip out of the bobbin end plus it is cracked so if I want to spin with this wheel it's going to need new bobbins which will have to be custom made by someone. All this got me to thinking that there is a really sturdy, basic wheel here with a lot of character and good qualities but if it wants to be a productive member of my spinning crew I think it's going to need a bit of a makeover. So I'm going to outline my ideas, which I'll likely not get to before the end of this year, which should leave enough time for someone to read this post and tell me this crazy handmade brute of a wheel is really worth $1,000 to some eccentric collector to whom I could sell it so I shouldn't change anything. Barring that, this is what I'm thinking....
When I first got my Baynes castle wheel, I also purchased the jumbo flyer and bobbins for it, thinking I would have a real range of versatility in one wheel. Sadly, I found that the jumbo flyer was an afterthought, and like so many "let's just add this" ideas it just doesn't function well. The Baynes really wasn't engineered for such a big load and it wobbles and jumps as the bobbin becomes fuller. Also, it's not convenient to switch between the regular and jumbo units so I just put the jumbo flyer away and toyed with the idea of selling it to some other unsuspecting spinner... needless to say I couldn't bring myself to do it so it's still here. Now I'm thinking that if I just unscrew the main flyer mount on the Kamsack Brute I could rebuild it to mount the jumbo unit from the Baynes. That still leaves some questions about switching a Scotch brake assembly into a double drive or if it's really necessary and just rigging a Scotch tension but I think I'll worry more about that once I actually start the project. And while I'm in improvement mode I might just add a set of wheel bearings to the shaft of the spoked wheel and see just how smoothly I can get this baby to run.
So that's about it for this weekend's surprises. I welcome your feedback on this wheel! Cheers all!
The flyer is so thick it's like a lethal weapon or something! The yarn guides are bent nails with the heads nipped off. The flyer mounts are a slot in the wood on one end and a leather piece on the other. Primitive is the word! Apparently every piece was hand turned on a lathe from square pieces of lumber and the entire wheel easily outweighs either of my other wheels by half again! The funniest part is that it has this
huge wooden handle that screws into the wood near the bobbin. The hilarious part about this,
is I believe it's supposed to be the "adjustment" screw for the double drive
but the guy didn't actually "know" that's what it was supposed to be so it just
screws into a hole in the wood. The arms for the bobbin & flyer are solid
and don't move. It looks like one of those "how hard can it be?" build jobs that
falls just short of actually meeting the mark. Apparently there are a raft of
these wheels in the Rocky Mtn House area because there was a woman there who
taught spinning classes and she sold this guy's wheels to all her students, one
of whom was my sister's MIL. No wonder she never took up spinning! LOL!!
I fiddled around for a bit trying to decide how I was going to drive band this thing. Finally it occurred to me that because the wheel has 2 separate grooves I could just thread 2 drive bands. The nice part is that setting the drive bands at different tensions helps overcome the similarity in the sizes of the drive wheels - a necessity if you want it to wind on. It meant I had to cut (dirty word) the extra long cotton coated drive band I've been hoarding. It's that sort of moment that makes you hesitate and ask yourself if you really want to do this.
Once I got that over with I found I couldn't just knot the drive band because the knots jumped out of the grooves on the bobbin and the flyer wheel when I tried to spin. So I resorted to my old standby - jumprings used as crimps - a really really fiddly job.
I fiddled around for a bit trying to decide how I was going to drive band this thing. Finally it occurred to me that because the wheel has 2 separate grooves I could just thread 2 drive bands. The nice part is that setting the drive bands at different tensions helps overcome the similarity in the sizes of the drive wheels - a necessity if you want it to wind on. It meant I had to cut (dirty word) the extra long cotton coated drive band I've been hoarding. It's that sort of moment that makes you hesitate and ask yourself if you really want to do this.
Once I got that over with I found I couldn't just knot the drive band because the knots jumped out of the grooves on the bobbin and the flyer wheel when I tried to spin. So I resorted to my old standby - jumprings used as crimps - a really really fiddly job.
When I first got my Baynes castle wheel, I also purchased the jumbo flyer and bobbins for it, thinking I would have a real range of versatility in one wheel. Sadly, I found that the jumbo flyer was an afterthought, and like so many "let's just add this" ideas it just doesn't function well. The Baynes really wasn't engineered for such a big load and it wobbles and jumps as the bobbin becomes fuller. Also, it's not convenient to switch between the regular and jumbo units so I just put the jumbo flyer away and toyed with the idea of selling it to some other unsuspecting spinner... needless to say I couldn't bring myself to do it so it's still here. Now I'm thinking that if I just unscrew the main flyer mount on the Kamsack Brute I could rebuild it to mount the jumbo unit from the Baynes. That still leaves some questions about switching a Scotch brake assembly into a double drive or if it's really necessary and just rigging a Scotch tension but I think I'll worry more about that once I actually start the project. And while I'm in improvement mode I might just add a set of wheel bearings to the shaft of the spoked wheel and see just how smoothly I can get this baby to run.
So that's about it for this weekend's surprises. I welcome your feedback on this wheel! Cheers all!
Well, it's certainly an interesting wheel. If anyone can get it spinning smoothly, it's you. I'll be watching to see how it goes.
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Thanks for the vote of confidence! Now to convince myself! LOL!!
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A cute chunky little wheel in a Norwegian style I'd say. Just yesterday I bought a pretty little DD antique saxony. She has a 24" drive wheel as opposed to my big Quebec 30". I will post pics on my blog soon.
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Your new wheel sound lovely! Your regular is a 36" ?!?!?!? That's huge!
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