Spinning Wheels: June 2006 Archives
Rember a couple of days ago when I mentioned the lovely pencil roving that I had purchased from Crown Mountain Farms? I mentioned also that I was waiting for a few things to happen before I started spinning it up. One of those things was getting through the madder/cochineal dyed Corriedale that I had already gotten started (this project is finally getting close to the plying stage). The other was waiting for the arrival of a new tool for my wheel: a WooLee Winder. I got to play with one of these at MS&W, but convinced myself that I could wait on it. But the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to wait. So in early June I got myself on line and placed my order.
Friday night my new toy arrived on my doorstep. So I did what any sensible spinning blogger would do: I took pictures and then I tried it out.
Even though both flyers are the same length and fit into the same mother of all, the WooLee Winder is deeper than the standard Lendrum flyer and accomodates a rather larger bobbin. The more I spin the more I think "the bigger the better" when it comes to bobbins. In addition to the one you see in the assembly on the left, I also bought myself two additional bobbins so that I could make a three ply yarn. I'll probably invest in more bobbins later, but at $25/bobbin, I decided I'd be conservative as I got started.
The depth of the flyer isn't the only difference for the WooLee Winder compared to the Lendrum Standard Flyer. It also has a different set of Flyer/Wheel ratios. The WooLee Winder has 6:1, 10:1 and 19:1 while the Lendrum Standard flyer has 6:1, 8:1 and 10:1 (I can get higher ratios with my "Lendrum Fast Flyer"). So the WooLee Winder should be quite flexible for spinning lace weight as well as bulkier yarns -- assuming I can ever figure out how to spin anything besides what is becomming my "standard" single.
So how does it affect the spinning experience? For me, it's like a world of difference. You can just spin and spin and spin. I thought it might be noisy, but the mechanism that distributes the single evenly over the bobbin is quite quiet once you get things started. I did find that I had to increase the scotch tension higher for the WooLee bobbins than I did for the Lendrum bobbins, but that probably makes sense given that they are rather larger. I really liked getting started on this bobbin. With my Lendrum bobbins, when you move the single to an open space on the bobbin that doesn't already have yarn on it, it usually starts hoovering that single in quite agressively until empty wood gets covered over with yarn. The draw on the WooLee Winder is smooth all the time.
A few other notes from my short spinning session. 1) The increased depth of the WooLee Winder Flyer has one other issue -- you have to position the Lendrum orifice hook "just so" so that the WW doesn't hit the hook. I was a little worried for the first few moments that I'd have to find another place to put my orifice hook (which I wouldn't like because I like to have the hook handy for both use and for wrapping the single around when I pause) but after I got it positioned right, everything worked out fine. 2) While I didn't have to worry about the distribution of the single over the bobbin, I did find that I had to adjust my scotch tension more frequently with the WW than I did with my standard flyer. Not sure whether that is just due to the weight of the bobbin or some other spinning physics bit that I still have to figure out. 3) The single is packed much more tightly on the bobbin. So not only are you getting a bigger bobbin to put more single on, but the simple act of even distribution gives you even more space for fiber.
Overall I'm very happy with my new purchase. Now if I could only get finished with that madder/cochineal Corriedale so that I could get on to using my WooLee Winder in earnest!
