Screwed the pooch! What the? Ground down the acrylic too much and so sharp and jagged I managed to cut my thumb:(.

All is not lost. I located a free woodworking pattern for building a wooden wagon wheel. Said wheel would be freakin' enormous if made of wood. I'm just using the pattern pieces for the felloes. So I traced out 8 of them, which btw print up on regular letter sized paper.

Then I used the scribble graphite + pen technique to transfer 8 to 2 sheets of acrylic.

They're for a 14" wheel. So if I glue them around the cake stand, I'll have a nice little groove for the drive band. But first to grind off the jagged edges. Fiberglass cutting and sanding wheel, here I come!

OMG! I Think I Can Use My Acrylic Wheel!

"Holy freakin' crap!" That's what Peter Griffin might exclaim. I'm just ecstatically shouting out "YIPPEE!" but inside my head. I started using a diamond burr bit to try and grind a hole in the edge of my acrylic wheel(it's really a cake stand, but I won't tell if you don't ;)). Disastrous! Just made lumpy dends because the wheel's so much larger than the whorls, thus it's far more unweildy to work with. Especially considering I'm using a simple dremelesque tool.

Then I remembered. Drill bits are cutting bits! Router bits are cutting bits! Then I contemplated this for a couple of minutes and realized that by holding the drill vertically away from myself with the wheel between my knees(seated in a chair that puts my thighs at a right angle from my body), I could use a drill as a router! Of course if I had realized this sooner, I would have started with a smaller bit, and gotten less wobbly a line(hoping it will be rectified as I bore deeper with the drill.

If this works I'll wind up with a far lighter, much more stable, and efficient wheel. The cake stand top is 14" in diameter, and I can get a larger circle of acrylic for I believe 10 bucks, but didn't want to spin that much before trying this thing out and making sure it's stable. Plus I had no idea how to make a groove for the drive band.

I'm aiming for 13.75" in diameter but will settle for around 13.5". Golly but I hope I didn't make the center post too short based on the small wagon wheel(it's about 9" in working diameter).

If I made the center post too short, I'll either have to make a completely new one(and am running short on acrylic sheet so more scrounging will be necessary, thank goodness for the scrap bin at Tap Plastics, cause I might be able to get a really long narrowish sheet for a song). I'm not afraid to haggle at this point. If I explain the situation and act ultra-cute, maybe just maybe they'll take pity on me :).

Jumping the gun though. Just have to eyeball the post with the wheel in place :). I can get another acrylic rod and make a whole new crank, no biggie :)

Just plain giddy, and am considering adding some colored acrylic to the mix cause it would be extra pretty, incorporate found parts, and still cost less than a hundred bucks(way less, maybe $25-$30 total :)).

Back to the grind :P

In an attempt to get more hits, I've improved my keywords. That said, whatever device used to troll through web pages might not understand context and how the keywords relate to my blog. So this blog is about building a DIY, Cheap Spinning Wheel, Out of Acrylic Sheet.

A person would use this $20 spinning wheel (it should cost less, but we'll see) to spin fiber into yarn! Okay, not a person, this person! Another gander at just such a fiber

  
it's silk! Though I've been very curious about vicuña which is a lovely fiber indeed. Okay I don't know that it's lovely, but since it's lore includes it's being worn by peruvian royalty, well, I want some!

Oooh I'm using a rotary tool AKA a Dremel though to be perfectly honest, it wishes it was a dremel. It's a big home depot orange colored Buffalo purchased from illinois(cause was cheap).

For me almost every item is a found item. So this really is a found items spinning wheel.

I will build my own spinning wheel. Soon I'll be spinning on a dime. Yippee!

Wooha! I oughta be finished soon :D