When I make a change to my wheel, I go back and check how it performs Scotch Tension and Irish Tension (single drive, bobbin lead).
Thus, I setup the new mother of all for Scotch Tension. RPM was about 65% of what I get with DRS, but net productivity was only ~ half for the 5,600 ypp woolen weft I am currently spinning.
Productivity for single drive, bobbin lead was better, and in the range of 70 % of DRS. It must be noted that productivity was not as high as I would had expected for the achieved bobbin rotation speeds.
With the accelerator wheel and large whorls, there was not as much difference between the performance of the #1 and #0 fliers as there is without the accelerator wheel and large whorls. The moral of the story is that: Small whorls have large slippage!
A second moral to the story is that gravity is a very good way to tension the drive belt, and that when the flier/bobbin assembly can move, vibration in the system is reduced.
However, the uniformity and grist control from DRS was distinctly better. This may have just been a function of my spending more time spinning DRS recently, but given the higher productivity and better grist control of DRS, I am not going to put the effort into keeping my long draw and inch worm skills sharp.
Is the extra effort (and math) for DRS worth while? It means that I can spin/ply a hank of 5-ply gansey yarn in a day.That means I can spin the yarn for a sweater in a week and have a couple of days of knitting rather than spinning. And, for big projects where I budget a thousand hours for spinning, it means that I have an extra 300 hours for weaving rather than spinning. That is almost 8 weeks, That is enough time to weave the yarn from (700 hours of fast spinning) or (1000 hours of spinning slow). Thus, by spinning 30% faster, my weaving time is free. And, the quality of the yarn that I produce with DRS is much better, so my cloth is better.
The greatest comparative advantage in textiles is in better spinning.
Thus, I setup the new mother of all for Scotch Tension. RPM was about 65% of what I get with DRS, but net productivity was only ~ half for the 5,600 ypp woolen weft I am currently spinning.
Productivity for single drive, bobbin lead was better, and in the range of 70 % of DRS. It must be noted that productivity was not as high as I would had expected for the achieved bobbin rotation speeds.
With the accelerator wheel and large whorls, there was not as much difference between the performance of the #1 and #0 fliers as there is without the accelerator wheel and large whorls. The moral of the story is that: Small whorls have large slippage!
A second moral to the story is that gravity is a very good way to tension the drive belt, and that when the flier/bobbin assembly can move, vibration in the system is reduced.
However, the uniformity and grist control from DRS was distinctly better. This may have just been a function of my spending more time spinning DRS recently, but given the higher productivity and better grist control of DRS, I am not going to put the effort into keeping my long draw and inch worm skills sharp.
Is the extra effort (and math) for DRS worth while? It means that I can spin/ply a hank of 5-ply gansey yarn in a day.That means I can spin the yarn for a sweater in a week and have a couple of days of knitting rather than spinning. And, for big projects where I budget a thousand hours for spinning, it means that I have an extra 300 hours for weaving rather than spinning. That is almost 8 weeks, That is enough time to weave the yarn from (700 hours of fast spinning) or (1000 hours of spinning slow). Thus, by spinning 30% faster, my weaving time is free. And, the quality of the yarn that I produce with DRS is much better, so my cloth is better.
The greatest comparative advantage in textiles is in better spinning.
I wonder why men are so obsessed with speed. Faster =/= better. Although I'm sure your wife has mentioned this before.
ReplyDeleteThen again, us womenfolk don't know much, I'm sure you'll find a way to mansplain it to us.
My wife likes to get the chores done so she can do something fun. At work, she likes to get the job done, so she can go home and do something else. Thus, she pushes the men on her team to get it done. And, she works under drop dead deadlines, so she pushes her team to get the work done before the deadline, because if they miss the deadline then all the invested effort is wasted.
ReplyDeleteIs that all so strange?
Women folk have always had warm clothes ready by the time snow flew. They had kits ready before the ship sailed. They had baby clothes ready. And, they put breakfast on the table in time to get kids to school, and men to work on time. Women have always worked to deadlines.
Women have always known how to get stuff done.
It seems to me that a woman would understand the joy of getting stuff done.