Woohoo! Free Bobbins!

That's right folks, free plastic bobbins for yarn, ribbon, whatever the heck you wanna wind onto them, they're yours for the asking. Want free bobbins? Need free bobbins? If you're building your own spinning wheel the answer is yes to both questions. If you bought one, then the answer is yes to the first ;). So here's how you go about gettin' 'em.

Haul your butt to the fabric store and hardware store.

Find any spool with little or no bulk material on it.

Nicely ask the employee how many yards are left on the spool and if you can have the spool if you buy what's left on it.

Today at the fabric store, the guy just gave me an empty spool he had tossed under the counter, and when I if I could have the spool with the last 2&3/4 yds of elastic by the yard, he said "sure". Turns out they just chuck the spools. The spools are the same size as many bobbins I've found for weaving and spinning.

So what gives? Well, if you have an expensive wheel, obviously you don't need these babies for spinning, but if you're making or made a wheel, these babies are super-handy for spinning. You're asking, "Why the heck would I want cheap bobbins?" "I have a gorgeous Kromski Prelude"(just using my current dream wheel as an example). Well, think about it, store the yarn on madamoiselle Bobbin Plastique, and voila! You're freeing up the good bobbins for more spinning, and have well-stored yarn on plastic bobbins for plying, or just plain tidy storage.

Why pay $1 each for 9 or 10 plastic bobbins with another $10 shipping and handling on ebay when you can get similair bobbins for nada, and help keep the landfills free of non-trash?

Woohoo! I'd say I'm about 3/4 finished!

I'm going to venture a guess that I'm approximately 3/4 finished. If you take a gander at either one of the newer Louet models(S40 though cute, need not apply), or the Ashford Kiwi, you'll understand how far along I am. Since all my biggest pieces and the balance of it seem to be in place, I can now focus on the mother of all(which right or wrong, I use as a catchall for the bobbins, whorls, flyer, brake/tension, and the unit that holds all those together).

I changed the crank. Acrylic broke off when I was putting pressure on the spacer on the opposite side(my own fault, cause I sorta put it together in reverse order, but how would/could I know any better?). Reglued it twice, but pressure kept breaking it(this was extreme pressure though, a lot more than with simple cranking, and was exerted all wrong for a crank, poor thing didn't stand a chance). So I took a small aluminum tube(this baby's sturdy though) and bent it to form a crank appropriate for this wheel(and there's a couple of different simple crank designs that can be used for wheels, so just know this is right for my wheel). Anyhow I then glued the crank into a thick square brass tube(I just have brass and aluminum tubes on hand for crafting, and haven't the foggiest what a person could use in their stead). Then I glued that entire unit into the hub of the wheel, where I first drilled a hole into the welded acrylic. So far so snug. Keeping an eye out for replacement wheels but this is good for now:).

Bearing is secure and a strip of innertube is firmly glued in place all along the inner rim of the wheel. This should provide good traction and stability for the drive band. Long run I'm hoping it improves balance(but a tiny ammount of wobble's okay, right now it's a tiny ammount but I'm aiming for 0 wobble).

Ooh, so a practice crank, with everything in place, and a piece of twine tied to the treadle and wheel(to make sure I can measure it all right), it treadles! I tied the twine around both the treadle and crank, and even though it's not as secure and even as it will be when my footman's in place, it's all good. Cause it treadles!

Happy Dance! Wiggle-Wiggle! Shimmy-Shimmy! I am the queen of building something out of nothing! Take that Martha Stewart! Muahahaha!