Overview of Spinning at the Spin Count

1. Select the desired grist and nature of the single.
2. Select a wool with a spin count that is the desired grist, and which has a nature that will produce the desired single.
3. Use differential rotation speed to set the flyer/bobbin assembly to insert the correct twist for that grist.
4. Prepare the wool as combed top, dressed onto a distaff. Combing with 5 pitch combs is how they did it for years and years, and it works.
5. Use a high bobbin/flyer rpm -- 2000 is good, 3,000 is better. Accelerator wheels work.
6. The hands will be a good distance apart and a good distance from the orifice.  Hand motions are very small, and limited to advancing wool into the drafting triangle and bringing stray staples to the area when the single is forming.
7. Yarn is wound off as when the effective circumference of the bobbin (and hence the inserted twist) changes. If you are spinning 60s, you can likely get 500 yards (8 grams) on a 3.5" bobbin before the twist changes more than 10%, and that is close enough for hand spinning.

The key to the whole process is that one needs to use DRS to insert the correct amount of twist for the takeup. Then, one needs to use a fiber with a spin count appropriate to the grist being inserted.   These two factors must work together.

Modern spinners find spinning these grists (20,000 ypp - 45,000 ypp, 140 to 200 wpi) difficult. This is because they either use spinning wheels with too much take-up or spindles which are slow. Then, modern spinners try to make the spinning easier by using the finest possible fibers.  In fact, the use of finer fibers changes the dynamics of the twisting process, and increases the requirements for drafting.  This is not noticed because these systems already require significant drafting effort.  In contrast, I set up my system to require minimal drafting effort.

I can spin 22,400 ypp single from Romney faster and easier than I can from Merino, and much, much easier than I can from that mix of silk, alpaca, and Merino that I was spinning over the weekend. All those fine fibers disrupt the system's ability to self-assemble the single. 

There is 60 count long wool on the distaff right now and I have been spinning it into 22,400 ypp singles. Spinning it at 30,000 ypp/60 count is just a matter of changing the flyer whorl, and Bingo, I am spinning at the spin count and everything is copesthetic.  The 22,400 ypp requires some drafting, The single at the wool's spin count just sort of self assembles with less attention. This is about small increments of faster and easier.

Get it all correct, and one can spin worsted grists of 20,000 ypp - 45,000 ypp at 350 to 200 yards per hour.  And the uniformity will be unbelievable in the context of modern hand spun.  A rather small investment in learning the physics of spinning brings huge rewards in easier spinning.  This has been my refrain for several years now.  The book that gets the physics of spinning correct is Alden Amos's, Big Book of Hand Spinning. Read it.  I know of two famous spinners that recommend it and still make mistakes about the content.  Learn it.  cf  Alden's analysis of spinning garment weight singles on the great wheel.  Flyer/bobbin systems are much easier, and much faster.

One can make much faster spindles that work very well for this technology, but I do not see many of them around.  

I have seen the larger spinning community deny that this is possible, and I see waves of anger.  No adult should ever get angry over a bobbin of lace  yarn.  A bobbin of lace is nothing, it a few grams of fiber and a couple hours of spinning. However, if you have a quarter of a million yards of 22,000 ypp singles, then you can weave a bolt of shirting. In the middle ages,  hundreds of bolts of shirting were being traded around Europe. That means that hand spinners were spinning tens of millions of yards of 22,000 ypp singles every year.  It was an industry that made families rich, and cities powerful.  And, that was in addition to what was being spun for other weaving.   That kind of money and power is something to get excited about.