GW 2

These days, I do not keep a great wheel.  I do have 2 motor driven spindles and 2 spindles that fit onto my treadle wheel.  None of these are as impressive to look at as a GW, but they are faster. And, they all allow me more use of both hands for drafting true worsted.

The motor driven spindles are easy to pause or stop, but hard to reverse.  Therefore, I had to learn how to wind-on with the spindle going in the same direction as when spinning.  It can be done, the answer is "out there", and I have no interest in teaching driven spindle technique.

If one does not have to reverse the spindle, then one does not have to stop, or pause the spindle, and the spindle can rotate continuously in the same direction.  One CAN spin a entire hank of single on a great wheel without ever reversing the wheel to wind on.  This can be much faster/easier than reversing rotation to wind-on depending on the inertia of the rotating system.

Nevertheless, the spindle must be slowed at various points in the spinning/drafting/wind-on process. Even though the spindle/wheel always rotates in the same direction, the slowdown/speedup cycle wastes energy. And, the wind-on cycle slows production of yarn. 

A spindle on my treadle wheel can insert twist many times faster than the flyer/bobbin assembly,  but the DD flyer bobbin assembly will spin and wind-on much more yarn in a minute or an hour or a day.  One of the motor driven spindles can insert twist many times faster than either spindle on my treadle wheel, but net production of single is not much different. Net production of spun yarn by a spindle is limited by the nature of its cycle, rather than by its peak speed.

A DRS flyer/bobbin assembly is the fastest hand spinning device for most natural fibers. Ring spinning can be faster for silk, but that is a specialized application.  Yes, those old double drive spinning wheels were the fastest way to spin.  They used the two loops of the drive band to synchronize the rotation of the bobbin and flyer to insert just the right amount of twist as the yarn was wound in at just the correct rate for the inserted twist. They did not have the drive band slip that is built into modern double drive wheels.  The result is that a double drive wheel without drive band slip that can produce singles much faster than a great wheel.  This is a truth that you have heard before.  It is just that all  modern DD wheels do have drive band slip and thus, spin more slowly than a GW.   In fact, a DRS flyer/bobbin assembly can produce true worsted spun yarn 5 times faster than a great wheel.  Every sock knitter should think about that.

And, since DRS is faster, sock yarns of more and finer (true worsted spun)  plies are possible.  These are very nice yarns that are simply out of reach of even the best spinners using a GW.  The use of DRS opens up spinning true worsted 5-ply gansey or even 10-ply Aran yarns.  And, it makes spinning true worsted warp for the loom much more feasible.

 On the other hand, a DRS flyer/bobbin assembly requires real skill to setup and maintain. I have seen two old DRS double drive wheels where the original DRS ratios had been "repaired", and the wheel converted to  modern standards.   As a result of the repairs, they could spin lower grist yarns, but could only do so --- slowly. These had been true collector's items and the owners were very proud of how fast they could spin -- if they only know how fast those wheels had been originally designed to spin, they would have been agast!   The difference between these wheels as designed and these wheels as "repaired" was only millimeters, and yet it made a huge difference in their performance. If one can teach the basics of using a GW in a 4-day workshop, then I would say that one could teach the basics of using DRS in a 4-week workshop.

Yes, Holin, my old Ashford can spin/ply a 500 yd hank of sport weight, worsted spun, 5-ply (gansey yarn) in an easy day.  How long does it take your GW?  In less than 14 hours, I can spin/ply a 500 yd hank of  worsted spun, 3x2-ply cabled, 1,600 ypp "sock yarn".  How long does that take your GW?  Shall we set up a demonstration in front of a judge and jury?  I want spinners like Judith MacKenzie and Stephenie Gaustad who know, and appreciate,  worsted spun yarns involved.

I have only been spinning for 6 years. (And, I was sick with Lyme Disease for much of that time!)  How long have you been spinning?  What will I be spinning when I have spun as long as you have been spinning?

DRS, Accelerator Wheels, and Low Grist Yarns

Many of the commercial double drive wheels come with a differential rotation speed of ~1.6. this would seem to make them ideal for making singles for worsted weight 2-ply yarns.

However, such thick yarns rapidly change the effective diameter of the bobbin as they accumulate on the bobbin.  Changes in the effective diameter of the bobbin change the DRS,  To keep grist/twist within ~10%, DRS need to be kept within  ~10%.  When you accumulate 1/4" of yarn on the bobbin, the diameter changes by 1/2" and the DRS changes by a lot and one needs to either change flyer whorls or wind off or allow slippage.  Slippage is the easiest, but why go to the effort of having a DD system, if you are just going to let the drive band slip?  I mean, at these grists we do not have to worry about breaking fine singles.

My first choice for spinning a single with grist of less than 2,500 ypp is single drive, bobbin lead (Irish tension).  These yarns do not require at lot of twist, so one does not need the very high rpm that requires 2 drive bands.  With these yarns, two thousand rpm will produce 10 yards per minute, which is about as fast as you can draft quality yarn.  With 90 rpm as a comfortable treadling cadence, that means a good ratio is ~1:24.

Whorls less than 2" (50 mm) in diameter tend to slip, so if you really want 2,000 rpm, then you need a whorl of 2" and a drive wheel of  48"!!  Forty-eight inch drive wheels are a big pain.

Enter the accelerator wheel.

When I first went looking for more speed for fine singles, I went to higher ratios by decreasing the size of my whorls. It was more an education than a success.

Today, I use the Ashford Jumbo flyer in Scotch Tension mode with the accelerator wheel for plying, and I routinely ply at more than 2,000 rpm.  I could just as well be spinning singles at (more than)  9 yards per minute. I have done samples and tests but no production spinning with that plying setup. Since with Scotch tension, worsted yarn does not self assemble as it does with DRS, it is all long draw woolen, rather than worsted. The speed is limited by my drafting, rather than the speed of the equipment.

Since low grist worsted tends to be harsh, when I want thick worsted yarns, I ply them up from fine worsted singles and have no interest in trying to figure out how to use DRS to spin low grist yarns.  On the other hand, this means that I have a great desire for fine singles.

Bottom line -- DRS for low grist yarns is a waste of effort.  DD without DRS is a waste of effort.  The only reason that people do it is that they have heard myths about the power of  double drive wheels  And, DD does have power.

DD with DRS can do things that SD simply cannot.  DD with DRS is a very powerful tool for spinning singles in the range of 2,500 to 45,000 ypp (5 m/gram to 90 m/gram). With DRS, true worsted and true woolen can be spun with almost the same drafting technique - what differs is the fiber preparation. Woolen is spun from a pile of carded rolags and worsted is spun from a distaff of combed sliver.  In particular, DRS allows spinning true worsted singles faster than long draw woolen singles of the same grist can be spun. (Woolen requires more twist than worsted of the same grist.) With DD/DRS, true worsted 5,600 ypp singles (10s) can be hand spun at 10 yd/minute on a sustained basis.  However, this puts very high demands on fiber preparation to avoid "twittering", which is variation in thickness of a single as a result of variation in the density of the sliver being spun.  Even with minor twittering, DRS allows spinning 560 yard hanks that are consistently within 5% of the desired weight.

And now you know why I have such respect for Clemes and Clemes.  Better fiber preparation is at the core of better and faster spinning.

On the other hand, minor twittering will not affect the final quality of 5-ply sport weight yarn.  The folks who say it does do not make enough of such yarn to make many objects from it.

Why I am not like a real knitter or real spinner

When  Cold Fusion was reported, I went down to the metals lab, got some titanium, and in a week had replicated their results right down to the anomalous explosion without ionizing radiation.  That is me, I go try things even when the expected results is everything blowing up.  I had set the experiment up in my Berkeley apartment, and it did make a mess of everything.

Real knitters and spinner do not do that kind of thing  They read. They buy commercial available knitting and spinning tools. And, they buy books of patterns. They do not set up experiments in their apartments.

For example, Mary Thomas's Book of knitting discusses knitting sheaths and hooked knitting needles.  It has been widely and easily available for a very long time. How many real knitters bothered to make and try knitting sheaths?  In the last 7 or 8 years that I have been knitting with a knitting sheath, I have only met 2 knitters that had used a knitting before I sold or gave them a knitting sheath, and I have heard of 5 or 6 others.   The book is out there.  Knitting sheaths are easy to make.  Why have not hundreds of knitters that have tried knitting sheaths?  They might have tried them and not found a knitting sheath helpful, but it says something about knitters that they have not tried them.

Alden's Big Book of Handspinning has been out for a long time and is widely available.  In it are a number of pictures of spinning wheels with accelerators.  Why haven't more real spinners tried them? They might try accelerators and reject them, but why not try them?  Why have not more spinners tried differential rotation speed (DRS) controlled flier/bobbin assemblies?  It says something about spinners that they have not tried either technology.

Regarding cold fusion, I had seen the explosion exactly as reported, but by the time I had cleaned up the mess, I knew with a visceral certainty that it was just a hydrogen explosion, rather than cold fusion.  It would have taken a long time to get that kind of visceral certainty from the reticent language of peer reviewed papers.  If I had not tried the experiment myself, it would have taken me years to get over the fear that the fossil fuel done a cover up.

By then, it was very clear that the  public relations groups working for the tobacco industry had perfected techniques to throw doubt on good science.

My results are that knitting sheaths are powerful tools that are well worth their cost and the effort to learn to use them very well.  Likewise DRS.  Likewise accelerator wheels for spinning. The cost and effort in every case is significant, but very worthwhile.

Spinning

I do not care if you are buying Italian designer suits or underwear at Target, the bulk of nice textiles are produced from thin yarns.  If you want to claim to be a spinner, you need to be able to produce thin yarns. And, if you want to be able to claim to be a spinner, you need to be able to produce a useful quantity of those yarns.

When I came to spinning 6 years ago the offered tools were various spindles, single drive wheels, and double drive wheels.  However, the whorl profile on the (commercially produced) DD  whorls had been corrupted, so that the DD wheels were actually single drive wheels in disguise.

There was a residual mythology about DD wheels being "better".  This was supported by the DD wheels with the corrupted whorl profiles being a few percent faster than single drive spinning wheels.  I was spinning 5-ply sport weight gansey yarn and the DD system was better.  Soon I was spinning those "lace weight" / 75 wpi singles at 150 yards per hour.

However, spinning finer was still difficult, and I went back to a Scotch Tension "Lace Flyer" to learn to spin 80s / 45,000 ypp / 200 wpi. Spinning those fine singles was slow and difficult.  Everything about it was hard.  Fiber preparation had to be perfect. Great care was required to prevent the single from burying itself. Mostly, it was slow - less than 100 yards per hour.

For the last couple of years, I have used double drive with differential rotation speed (DRS) exclusively.  DRS is the source of the myth that DD wheels are better. They are faster and allow spinning finer.

Now using DRS, I routinely spin the singles for gansey yarn at more than 500 yards per hour. A 500 yard hank of 5-ply is an easy day's task.  Last night while watching Pride and Prejudice, I spun an ounce/ 1,600 yards of shirting warp (22,000 ypp) from 60 count long wool.  And, I can spin 80s / 45,000 ypp / 200 wpi using fiber with only ordinary preparation. And, I do not have to worry about the single getting buried because, it is spun under much less tension. And it is faster.  My production rate with the Scotch Tension "Lace Flyer" is still less than 100 yards per hour, and my production rate with the DRS DD is about twice that.

DRS DD wheels are better for producing useful quantities of fine singles for high quality textiles.  Why DRS DD wheels are not sold is a mystery.  Why people do not learn to use such tools is a mystery.

Spinning more Hanks

I am in this for the yarn.  I want better yarn.  That means hand spun.

From the start, I wanted my yarn fast.  I was in this for the yarn, not as a way to pass time.  I was willing to put in the time that the chore of spinning demanded, but I did not want to put any extra time into spinning.

I came to spinning knowing how construction professionals worked. They had good tools, they knew how to use them, and they worked rapidly with no wasted motions. They did the job, and then they went on to the next job.  Spinners on the other hand seemed intent on slowing the work process.  Spindles were designed with large whorls so they spin slowly.  Spinning wheels were designed to spin slowly.

Spinners are in denial.  They say, "No, my wheel is fast."  However, they do not stop an think that flyer/bobbin speed is limited by power transfer through the drive band and Scotch Tension systems brake the flyer/bobbin assembly, and thereby reduce the over-all rate of twist insertion.  Then, they have double drive systems that inherently require drive band slippage.  If there is slippage, then the flyer/bobbin assembly is not going as fast as it would without slippage.  For the last 50 years, spinners have been favoring wheels that had SLOW built into them, and wheel makers built what the market demanded.

Spinners say, "These are traditional designs!"  Ok, traditional designs for what?  Linen! The long fibers of flax need a slower speed, and there were a lot of old linen wheels around.  People assumed that a spinning wheel was a spinning wheel, and used old linen wheels as the design prototype for wool wheels.  So what is the difference between the design of a good linen wheel and a good wool wheel?  The linen wheel wants less speed, and the wool wheel wants more speed.  Scotch Tension systems are a logical engineering choice for a wheel designed for linen. They are less logical for a wool wheel. They are not at all logical for spinning cotton.

A traditional wheel design for woolen spinning is Irish Tension. There is no additional braking to slow the flyer/bobbin assembly.  There is no drive band slippage to slow the the flyer/bobbin assembly. The mechanism is simple to make and inexpensive. If you wan to spin medium woolens (30,000 yd/lb and less), bobbin lead is a very good and traditional approach. It is simple and easy to set up. And yet, I remember the feeling of rebellion, when I first tried IT.  Everyone was telling me that most spinners were much happier with ST.  And, yes, IT with the big Ashford flyer does have a very strange feel to it. The sudden increase in take-up at higher speed is very disconcerting for the beginner who is not forewarned.   The beginner (with a big flyer) says WTF, and abandons the concept. The beginner with a small flier feels no take-up and says, WTF and abandons the concept. The ST friction brake provides a steady take-up pressure as speed increases that is easy for the beginner.  While the IT takeup is a cube function that is small at lower speeds, and then increases very rapidly at high speed.   With the big Ashford  fliers, IT does produce excessive take-up pull when one tries to spin fast (more than ~800 rpm).  However, a small flier such as AA's #1 flier produces very reasonable take-up tensions at speeds in the range of 1,800 - 2,200 rpm. On the other hand take-up at speeds less than 1,500 rpm is negligible. At slow speed, one can spin very fragile yarns or make pig tails. For conventional yarns, one either spins fast or it does not work. The AA #0 flier running in IT generates reasonable take-up at speeds in the range of  2,400 - 3,200 rpm.

For the expert with a flyer that has a low aerodynamic cross section,  that low take-up at low speed and high take-up at high speed is a very powerful tool.  The expert can adjust take-up by altering the bobbin rpm by treadling slower or faster. The take-up adjust is precise over a wide range, fast, and does not require the hands to leave the yarn.  All of which  is important when yarn is running through your fingers at 10 yards per minute. However, the spinner much be prepared spin fast, and know that slowing down will stop take-up before the bobbin stops.  This is a set of skills that have fallen out of spinning lore.

Now look at the literature.  Do the experienced spinners warn the beginners? Why not?

What if one wants to spin worsted fines (30,000 to 48,000 ypp)? Fines require some 20+ tpi. Scotch Tension systems will get you there, but it is clumsy and very, very slow.  IT is faster, but it gets very delicate as the flyer is pulled by a fresh yarn of only 20 fibers.  Modern double drive with slippage is a fraction better than ST. Differential Rotation Speed Double Drive is the best engineering design for spinning yarns in this class, but one must prepare and fabricate a specific engineering design for the grist. This is worthwhile if you plan on spinning many miles of a particular grist. Then, these yarns can be spun as fast as they can be drafted, and well prepared fiber can be drafted very fast.  Traditionally, hand spinners did spin fines as a commercial product.  Here, "commercial product" means the yarns were spun by hand rapidly.  Differential Rotation Speed Double Drive has no equal for hand spinning worsted fines.

I spin yarn as I need it. I benchmark how fast I spin, so that I can evolve and improve my spinning.  I do not care how fast you spin, but I do care how fast I spin. I want to make sure that I am spinning at a reasonable rate.  If others are mired in myth and cannot believe what I do, that is not my problem.

My problem is to make the yarn that I need, in the time that I have.

More on the hot rod wheel

My loom uses a warp tension system that employs sliding weights to vary the tension.  This put me to thinking that I could adjust the tension of the drive band on the spinning wheel by sliding the weights rather than changing the weights as I have been.  It works.  It complements the gang whorl system.

I just slide the weight  hanger from notch to notch on a lever attached to the MOA.

(The holes support a yarn guide for winding off ,)

 

Thus, I avoid running out to the garage to get different weights.

Overall, now I am satisfied with the spin system' performance.  At this time, this wheel will spin about as fast as I can draft. It meets my needs.

Three years ago, between slippage and vibration,  the new stock Ashford had a maximum twist insert of under 1,000 rpm for the DD & ST flyers, with the lace flyer perhaps 30% faster.  All in all, production speed of 10s (5,600 ypp singles) was under 200 yards per hour.

With Alden Amos's wonderful, low vibration fliers, gang whorls, and adjustable weight system, the system can now be run at well over 2,000 usable rpm on a sustained basis. This means that 10s can be easily spun at 350 yards per hour, and a uniform, knot free hank of 560 yards produced.   40s (22,000 ypp) can be spun in the close range of 200 yards per hour on a sustained basis.  While, I exceeded this speed with the stock Ashford flyer and the very high speed flier whorls that I fabricated last year, then there was more vibration resulting in lower quality thread and spinning on that gear was - more work.

While some of the increase in speed is improved skill, Istill use the stock Ashford flyer/bobbin assembly for plying (because of more capacity).  So I have the gear out on a regular basis and 1,000 rpm is still about as fast as it can go.  While I certainly did learn to spin 60s (30,000 ypp) on the Ashford lace flyer, that is much harder and requires more skill and concentration than spinning 60s on this system. With the current system of Alden's fliers and weight tension, 80s can be spun at a good pace.  More, I cannot ask of any spinning system.

As currently configured, I do not see any advantage to e-spinning, and I have re-purposed my e-spinner to a prin winder.

(Not shown is a safety lanyard that protects the tile floor from falling weights when the drive band breaks.)

DRS Revisited

I have been plying yarn for my Shetland gansey.  Some of the singles were spun last winter before I built the Hot Rod and some after. 


Running the singles through my fingers, I am impressed by the consistent fineness of the singles spun using the Ashford high speed whorl and bobbins with whorls that provide the proper DRS (differential rotation speed) for the grist of yarn being spun.  While the Hot Rod certainly allows me to spin faster, singles spun on it tend to drift in thickness.  For example, singles that I intend to be ~9,000 ypp end up with portions being closer to 7,000 ypp or 11,000 ypp.  I think this is because with the small whorls, a small change in anything changes the DRS.  While the standard Ashford high speed whorl is twice as large, so the same change in that system makes only half as much change in its DRS. 


Anyway, I am going to move toward larger whorls so that I have better control of my  DRS.  I have not decided if I am going to do that by putting an accelerator wheel on the Traddy or if I will buy a 30 inch wheel.  


Most of last week, I had the Ashford Lace Flier (ST) on the wheel.  First and foremost, I do not think that there is any question that a good bumpless driveband (per Amos) delivers more power than the Ashford Turbo driveband (clear stretchy plastic).  2)  Fluorocarbon leader material (fishing line) makes very good brake band material for spinning very fine yarns. 


As long as we are talking about spinning fine, see the Bothwell Spining results at http://www.bothwellspinin.com/spinin/files/LongestThreadResults_2011l.pdf   The winners are spinning singles up in the range of 100,000 ypp or 176 hanks/ lb. The winner, Jan Zandbelt, currently uses a Louet Julia, but in 2007, he used a Majacraft Suzie with 1 gram of brake tension and custom made ultra-light weight spinning bobbins.  Of course, that contradicts my thoughts about DD being better for spinning fine.  Or, does it?


I do not spin that fine.  I do not try to spin that fine.  I do not need singles finer than about 27,000 ypp.  I aim to spin my finest singles at ~90% of  their spinning count.  Thus, Polwarth has a spinning count of ~ 62, so I would aim to spin it at ~ 31,000 ypp.  Zandbelt spins it at 88,400 ypp.


Does that invalidate everything that I say?  I want yarns that knit up into fabrics that I like, and I want to produce those yarns with a minimum of effort. Zandbelt wants thin yarn for contests. He says that "Patience"  is important.  We have different goals.   


However, I am arrogant enough to think that if I wanted to spin Polwarth  into a yarn that was too fragile for any practical use, I could.   I would approach the problem by making up a DD spinning bobbin with a DRS of 1.01 and a bobbin core diameter of 0.625".  I think that for that low a DRS, I would use the regular Ashford DD flier whorl, which gives me a bobbin whorl diameter of 1.73". We are talking a bobbin speed of 1,200 RPM.  My bobbin has not gone that slow in ages.  It would take all weekend to spin 10 grams. "Patience" is right. 

DIY: high speed production wheel for high grist singles

Background:
In 2009, I decided that commercial gansey yarns were not as good as what they could be and that I should spin my own. (These singles are about 5,600 ypp grist.)  After some thought, I bought my Ashford Traditional (Traddy) in April 2010.  By August, I wanted more speed.  The Ashford Lace Flyer Kit was a step in the right directions, but I wanted more speed. The Ashford DD Kit actually provided more speed.  However, it became clear that belt slip was the big problem and at higher flier speeds, was the dominate issue. Then, I became interested in higher grist singles and the problem became acute.

A very careful reading of Chapter 8 from Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning, suggested that the solution was a "one-yarn"  double drive wheel, where a precise relationship between the size of the flier whorl, the size of the bobbin whorl, and the diameter of the bobbin core allow the use of a tight drive band with limited slip.  Thus, in this setup of a DD wheel, there are two drive bands suppling power to the flyer/bobbin assembly.  Such wheel setups were common from circa 1600 until WWI.  However, they are notably absent from the famous "Canadian Production Wheels."  And, such DD setups are not offered by any of the manufacturers that mass market spinning wheels. That is because they take some skill to setup and keep operating correctly.  However, that extra effort is repaid with real spinning ease and speed.

It looks like an ordinary "Traddy", but it is wicked fast.


Procedure:

Understanding "DRS", as the term is used by Alden Amos in his Big Book of  Handspinning (or Preistman's discussion of Saxony Wheels in  his 1925 Principles of Worsted Spinning) is critical to making this work.

An  Ashford high speed flyer whorl and bobbins made for yarns in the 5,000 to 10,000 ypp range.

I started by turning new bobbins to work with the high-speed  Ashford DD whorl at specific DRS for specific yarns with twist calculated for the bobbin cores.  These did not have any bearings, so they chattered and were noisy. However, they proved the concept and allowed me to spin 560 yard hanks of 5,600 ypp single in about 4 hours, which was  faster than I had been spinning such singles with the Standard Ashford High Speed DD kit, and was faster than I had been spinning those singles with the Ashford Lace Flyer Kit.  Moreover, the spinning of such singles on a one-yarn DD wheel was less effort and provided a more consistent yarn.   I was hooked.  What opened my eyes to the possibilities of the technology was a bobbin that I made with a DRS of 1.02 that allowed the effortless production of 30,000 ypp singles.  Yes, it was slow, taking a full 8 hours to produce a hank, but still, it was not something that I considered to be within the range of a first year spinner.  It was an epiphany.

Then, one of my Ashford flyer whorls warped and I had to replace it. Afterward, I knocked the warped  wood off of the steel core and epoxied a piece of walnut burl onto it and turned it down to a (flier) whorl with a diameter of  0.6275", which gives a flier ratio of ~35:1. However, the bobbin whorl diameter for a DRS of 1.02 is 0.61" for a bobbin ratio of ~40:1.  Since this setup is run with a taut drive band I get a useful 2,200 twists per minute from the bobbin, which allows spinning a 560 yards of firm twist 5,600 ypp in a couple of hours or 560 yards of firm twist 9,000 ypp singles in well under 3 hours.

Ashford DD flier with whorls and bobbins to produce yarns in the 5,000 to 10000 ypp range with firm twist. These have a wheel to bobbin ratio of 40:1.  They are very fast.

Tools:
The required wood working tools are a small drill press, a small wood lathe, and turning chisels.  I cut the bottom of the flier whorls with the back of a skew chisel, and the bottom of the bobbin whorls with a skew chisel that has been rounded into a scraper.

The last sets of bobbins have either  plastic bearings from Ashford or sintered bronze bushings from my local industrial hardware store.  Both work, and I have not made up my mind yet as to which is better.

I wind off when there is half or a third of an ounce of single on the bobbin, and thus the bobbins do not need a large capacity, and there is a relatively small change in the bobbin diameter as a result of accumulated yarn on the bobbin to change inserted twist.  This program is for fine singles.  I have a little bobbin winder that supports very rapid wind off without taking the spinning bobbin out of the wheel.

My Traddy has vibration at about 1,600 rpm.  I put on a set of better hinges under the MoA, and I use a white rubber vibration damper under the tension screw, all of which help but do not solve the problem. I can either loaf along at less than 1,500 rpm or treadle hard and get the rpm over 2,000, when vibration dies down again.  Thus, I have a sweet spot for bobbin rpm between 2,000 and 2,200 which is fast with little vibration.

I had some problems with a prototype bobbin whorl swelling in unseasonably wet weather to the extent that it changed the DRS.  However, when both bobbin and flier whorls are made of similar materials (wood) , similar dimensions,  have similar finishes (oil/varnish);  then they expand and contract at similar rates and to similar extents and this ceases to be a problem.

In summary, this is an old, but recently neglected spinning technology that requires a good bit of knowledge and skill to implement.   However, it offers a way to easily spin very soft and very fine yarns that are very difficult to spin with any other technology, and it offers a way to spin  fine yarns very consistently and very fast.

Virtues of Scotch Tension

Previously, I noted that Double Drive (DD) spinning wheels can go faster because they have two drive bands to transmit that power from the drive wheel to the flier assemble. However, you may not really need to go that fast.

If you do not have a real need for speed, “Do you want a DD spinning wheel?” I suggest, not likely.

With DD wheel, the ratio between differential rotation speed (DRS) strongly affects the kind of yarn that you spin. A set DRS can help you spin a very consistent yarn if you are working with the same kind of wool and want to spin miles and miles of the same kind of yarn (production spinning).

On the other hand, if you to work with different kinds of fibers/wools, or you want to spin a different kind of yarn, with a DD wheel you need to change the DRS. This means changing your bobbin or changing your flier whorl or both. If you want to spin different yarns with a DD wheel you need a whole set of bobbins and flier whorls.

Now, some of this can be done by working with a partially filled bobbin to fine tune DRS, and some can be done by adjusting belt tension. However, these steps only take you so far. If you do not have a bobbin/flier whorl combination to give you the DRS that you need for the yarn that you want to spin, you are going to have to fight your wheel for every inch of that yarn that you produce. This takes away from the joy of spinning. This is one reason that people have different DD wheels. Each has a (set of) different DRS, and thus different yarns that they spin easily.

DD wheels come with a very limited selection of bobbin/flier whorl combinations that allow the easy spinning of a very limited number of different yarns. If you have an Ashford Traddy with a (Fast) DD kit, you will find it easy to spin lace singles at about 5,000 ypp. However, spinning 11,200 ypp singles leads to cuss words that cannot be said in public – until you get the right whorl (custom made), and then it goes like butter on warm toast. (Oh, yes, it can be done, but it is not as easy as it is when you have the bobbin/flier whorl combination to produce the correct DRS for that yarn.) If you want to spin 22,400 ypp singles (easily), then you need a different (custom) bobbin/flier whorl combination. Thus, if I want to spin a new kind of yarn, I start by going into the shop and turning a new spinning bobbin that gives me the correct DRS for the yarn that I want to spin. And, when I am spinning ST, I put a lot of yarn on my spinning bobbin. When I am spinning DD, I stop and wind off frequently, because as the bobbin fills, my DRS changes.

Scotch tension (ST) on the other hand will allow you to produce almost any yarn that you want from almost any wool. Small changes in drafting technique, or treadle rate or brake tension are all that is required to easily produce a wide variety of yarns. Thus, Scotch tension is better for people that want to work with a variety of different wools/fibers to produce a variety of different yarns. The downside of ST is that it has lower limits on speed and it is harder to produce a very consistent yarn.

The virtues of DD are ease of producing a consistent yarn very rapidly. The vices of DD are the extreme difficulty of producing yarns for which you do not have an appropriate bobbin/flier combination to produce the correct DRS, and the difficulty of obtaining appropriate bobbin/flier combinations for specialty or unique yarns (particularly for old wheels.)

A New Twist on Lace Fliers

I came to spinning not as a spinner, but as a person interested in yarns that I could not get from commercial sources. As a good student, I asked, “What is the best way to spin fine, high twist singles?” The conventional wisdom that I received was to use a “Lace Flier”.

Lace fliers are Scotch tension flier and bobbin assemblies ostensible designed for the rapid production of lace singles. They tend to be “balanced”, and have low friction bearings to allow them to spin at very high speed. They are flier lead and have small whorls resulting in “high ratios” so that they can turn very fast with a limited treadle rate. Or, at least that is the conventional wisdom.

In fact, at lower speeds (400 – 800 rpm) this is how lace fliers work. As a beginning spinner starts wanting to spin faster, a lace flier helps them insert more twist into their fine singles, and for the beginning spinner, it seems like a lace flier is the ultimate answer to rapidly spinning fine singles.

At slightly higher speeds, things start to fall apart. At low speeds, it takes very little power to drive the flier and bobbin. Windage is minimal. Energy to accelerate the flier is minimal. Energy going into twisting the yarn is minimal. And, (if you oiled your wheel) friction is minimal. However, windage is proportional to the cube of the speed and acceleration is proportional to the square of the speed, with the power dissipated as friction and going into twist being directly proportional to the speed. Together these represent a power consumption function. All the power to the flier is supplied to the flier and bobbin by the drive belt.

Thus, if “windage” consumes 1 watt at 400 rpm, it will consume 8 watts at 800 rpm, 27 watts at 1,200 rpm, 64 watts at 1,600 rpm, and 125 watts at 2000 rpm. This power must be delivered by the drive band. A piece of kitchen string tied with a square knot can easily transfer 8 watts, even if it is sweeping a small whorl. To get that kitchen string to transfer 125 watts (i.e., 2,000 rpm) you are going to have to ply it up into a cable and douse it in a high-friction belt compound, otherwise that belt is going to slip or break. You will be treadling like like crazy, and you wheel will be making all the noises that say it is going fast, but drive belt will be slipping against that little lace flier whorl, so that the flier and bobbin are not going as fast as you think they are going.

Wheel wrights have put great effort into reducing the windage of their lace fliers, but that cubed function for windage is against them. And, in a Scotch tension system, the bobbin cannot go any faster than the flier. In fact, the bobbin speed (and hence twist) will be between 10 % and 30 % less than the flier speed.

The truth is that a high-speed double drive system will provide higher bobbin speed and hence insert more twist into the yarn, allowing faster spinning than a lace flier. There are several reasons for this. Double drive wheels have more than twice as much contact surface with the drive band to transfer more than twice as much power. In a double drive system the bobbin goes 10 % to 30 % faster than the flier. Thus, if you have a Scotch tension wheel and a double drive wheel with the fliers going at the same speed, the double drive wheel will be putting 20 % to 60% more twist into the yarn. I did not know this when I looked at the ratios of various fliers as I prepared to buy my first wheel.

Last summer, I spun 10 miles of 5,600 ypp singles with a lace flier on my Ashford Traddy, and I guessed much of the above. In December, I got a Neiko Digital Tachometer (NDT). That confirmed my worst fears. I was wasting effort. I was treadling and my drive belt was slipping like crazy. (Despite that fact that I have long experience with drive belts in the power range of 0.5 to 800 hp, and I know how to minimize belt slip.) The bottom line is that the small swept area of the lace flier whorl is not capable of handling the power required to drive the flier at much over 2,000 rpm.

The NDT tells me that if I treadle diligently, I can insert a lot more twist into my yarn using the high-speed double drive (ratio stated as 17:1) than I can using the lace flier that Ashford tells me has a ratio of 40:1. For example, the NDT tells me that the Ashford Turbo dive band starts slipping at ~2,000 rpm. It does not matter how much tension I put on it, the band does not drive the Ashford Lace Flier faster, no matter how fast I treadle. From my treadle pace, I think my flier is flying, but the NDT is there to keep me honest.

The NDT tells me that much of what is tossed around about speed of spinning is not accurate. And, it tells me that much of the conventional wisdom about spinning is wrong.



A faster DD bobbin/whorl set for my Traddy that I made by hand.

Moreover, the industry has a odd way of calculating the ratios for DD spinning wheels.  The actual drive wheel/ bobbin ratio affecting spin insertion for the high-speed Ashford DD bobbin/whorl set is closer to 22:1.  The drive wheel/ flier ratio is ~ the stated 17:1, but in practice the bobbin turns faster than the flier, and thus twist insertion is greater than would be expected by comparing the ratios of the DD kit with the ratios of the lace flier kit.

DD is the smart spinner's way to fast twist insertion.