The wheel spins!

It is pretty and almost finished!

In this context, ‘almost finished’ means ‘actually works and spins yarn, but still has a buttload of work that needs doing before it looks how i want’.

I have issues with painted wheels. I LOVE the idea, and then I see pictures from people who’ve just painted random sheep or flowers or cats all over them, and that seems to hurt my brain. I think the design should fit with the shape of the wheel, flow with it, add to it, rather than look like a child had stuck stickers all over it. I am well aware that I may be alone in my thinking, and this isn’t a slight at all on people who DO like that sort of thing, but well, i think most painted wheels look ugly. Yet still the idea appeals to me.

I am pretty happy with how this is coming along, it looks all pretty and old and….argh i don’t wanna say it….goddammit, ok, i’ll say it….steampunkish* and certainly much better than the orangey varnished thing it started out as.

And it actually makes yarn, see?

Okay, so i didn’t make MUCH yarn because the flyer only has two hooks on and the band only fitted onto the biggest whorl, and there’s a bit of a wobble on the wheel as i couldn’t put the pin back in (don’t worry, it wasn’t another huge drama, just Gren is stupid and thinks 1am is the time to be asleep, so hitting things with hammers wasn’t polite). But it made yarn nonetheless, and it actually spun amazingly smoothly and quietly considering it has the old solid wooden bobbins.

Now all i need to do is:

– hit it with a hammer!

– replace flyer hooks with pretty new shiny ones

– replace driveband with one of the cool stretchy ones (which i have somewhere, just need to find)

– replace tension spring with one that isn’t all fucked up, and replace the cord with something less irritating than that stupid monofilament crap it comes with.

– replace head of tension screw and mother-of-all-lifty-thingy-screw with pretty brass ones

– do something with the treadle assembly. Probably a brass plate to cover the treadle, or maybe a couple of brass rods. My abilities (or lack thereof) in remembering to buy things, finding things locally so i dont have to waste a ton on postage, welding, and actually getting on with stuff will all come into play here. I may well just end up painting it with the pretty brass paint and calling it a day.

– make a matching orifice hook

– decide whether to do anything with the bobbins and lazy kate, or just not bother seeing as the bobbins are the old solid wooden ones and could do with being replaced with the ones with plastic bearings anyway.

*omg i hate the word steampunk. I LOVE the aesthetic, but I hate the whole ‘imma stick some bits out of a clock on this piece of plastic crap and then sell it as a steampunk pendant’ shit that seems to be prevalent these days. It makes me cry emo tears, so even using the word with -ish at the end makes me feel dirty. *shudder*. I will have to go look at regretsy for a while until i feel clean again. Hmm, on second thoughts, that totally won’t work, but i will go look anyway because it is hilarious.