Drop spindles

Trial runs. They don't work quite as well as I'd like, but good turning practice and I learned a few tricks while doing them. The hard part is that they have to be 100% balanced and centered. The slightest (and I do mean the slightest) deviation makes them pretty unusable. Both of these "work" after I did some tuning but I have some ideas on how to do things easier and how to improve the balance/spinnyness. Fun after work project to knock one out anyway.

This is more of the mystery wood from my friends tree. This is mostly sap wood the heart wood is somewhat darker, I believe that the color is mostly spalting as there was some bug damage above this piece in the original log I cut it out of. Finished with just two coats of wax sanded in.

Trail runs work, it lets you do the fine tuning and helps on the finished pieces

I am not understanding what you turned. Are they spinning tops and your rpms are garnered with the pull string? If so, the eyelet is throwing your balance off along with all of the height. Otherwise, as normal, I am clueless!

These are used for spinning wool, right ???

They look pretty good to me

For making yarn......


.... surprised you did not know this one Jonathan

Thanks Stuart, exactly like that. They actually come in a bewildering variety of forms there are top and bottom and mid "whorl" (the whorl is the larger round part). There are "drop" spindles (which hang from the piece your spinning in that you "drop" them into the air), supported spindles, semi supported spindles, etc.. The distribution of weight on the whorl determines the speed and longevity of the spin (more weight further out == slower but longer spin, weight further in == faster but slower). The yarn is hooked on (or not..) in a wide variety of ways, there are bumps and notches to keep it in line or you can tie a half hitch around the spindle part or nowdays most people use hooks. Getting the hooks right is equally challenging as the center of the high point has to be perfectly aligned in the center of the spindle or wobbly wobble. That's just for starters.... I'm only making simple ones cause I ain't THAT crazy

Anyway I can't really use them other than to do a test spin with a piece of string to check the wobble But they are fun to make and another good way to use up some smaller scraps. I sort of find the physics of how they work to be rather amusing and I kind of get a kick out of making things that move or are used to make other things.

So I made three more of these. Finally got one that actually works well. Kind of amazing the one that works best has a lot of what I can only term "hang time". It just sits at the end of the string and spiiiinnnnnssss and sppinnnnsss. Its only subtly different than the others, but boy does that make a huge difference. Pretty cool when physics works for you

Ryan Mooney said:

So I made three more of these. Finally got one that actually works well. Kind of amazing the one that works best has a lot of what I can only term "hang time". It just sits at the end of the string and spiiiinnnnnssss and sppinnnnsss. Its only subtly different than the others, but boy does that make a huge difference. Pretty cool when physics works for you

Click to expand...

Cool. Now the trick will be learning to find that sweet spot repeatedly.

Those look pretty cool.