ST

I like to retest and re-compare the various technologies every so often to see if I still come to the same conclusions.

This morning, I set up  The Competitor flyer/bobbin assembly with the accelerator wheel and Scotch Tension (single drive/ flyer lead).

I originally went to DRS because in trials, DRS (double drive) delivered a lot more rpm from the flyer/bobbin assembly, and I wanted more speed for spinning the singles for 5-ply.  While it was chosen for speed, DRS opened up another set of  drafting techniques that I did not expect.

With the accelerator wheel,  I can easily run The Competitor (flyer) as fast as with a single drive  (either IT or ST) as I can drive the flyer/bobbin assembly with DRS.

Nevertheless, DRS produces singles faster. The difference is wicked.

DRS changes the nature of the drafting process.  With DRS, I can draft much faster than I can with either IT or ST.  DRS can take full advantage of the speed possible with an accelerator wheel.

Accelerator wheels can deliver a lot more rpm than can be taken advantage of with conventional drafting such as "long draw" (with fine singles),  and accelerator wheels are a bother.  Therefore, I deduce that spinning wheels with accelerator wheels used DRS.

As we look in the Big Blue Book, pages 183 - 190, AA / SG provide drawings of 11 wheels, 3 of which have accelerator wheels.  Despite, the modern accelerator wheels with ST, I trust that the 3 wheels in TBBB, belonged to trained professional spinners that knew how to do spinning math and use DRS.  I mean Aristotle, knew and used the math.  Anyone who had access to any copy of books by Aristotle  or his students, had access to the math; and, spinning was a very competitive  industry.

ETA I have been mostly spinning worsted and semi-worsted, and had not tested the just the accelerator wheel with single drive against DRS for true woolen spun from rolags, via long draw. Perhaps this was a case where single drive could keep up with DRS.  Well, as of this morning,  I cannot spin 40,000 ypp woolen long draw, and I can spin it with DRS so I will do the numbers for which is faster when I get a rate for somebody actually spinning 40,000 ypp via long draw.

Comprehensive revision

I have Lyme Disease.  It crept up on me, starting circa 2005, and I did not realize how very disabled I was.

It dramatically affected my strength, endurance, vision, balance, and coordination.

Thus, circa 2011, as I set out to discover just how fast a professional hand spinner could spin in the era 1550 to 1750, I was significantly disabled.

 Now! after more than a year of intensive antibiotic treatment, I am better.   I am not well yet, but I am better. Today, I have more strength, endurance, and coordination than I had in 2011 and a great deal more than I had in say 2014.  Thus, today I do spin spin faster. Therefore, all of the timed spinning in previous posts is conservative.

One could expect a healthy, professional hand spinner with moderately good equipment to spin faster.

My current considered judgment is:

•  That a DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly with an accelerator wheel operated by a professional hand spinner should be able to produce 560 yards of worsted spun 5,600 ypp commercial grade warp yarn (10s) per hour, even if the spinner has substantial health issues.  Woolen spun yarns of about the same twist ( 9 TPI) can be spun faster. 
• That a a DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly with an accelerator wheel operated by a competent hand spinner can spin woolen or worsted yarns with ~ 20 wool staples in cross-section at a good commercial pace. Romney is easy to spin at more than 20,000 yards per pound, Shetland can be spun at more than 30,000 ypp, and  fine wools such as Merino or Rambouillet can be spun at more than 40,000 ypp.  Fine worsted singles can be reasonably spun at rates of more than 3 yards per minute. Thus, 20,000 ypp 2-ply worsted yarn can be prepared at an over-all rate of 60 yards per minute.
•  20,000 ypp 2-ply is finer than any American entry in the last longest thread competition.  A reasonable time budget to spin, and ply, 10 grams of 20,000 ypp 2-ply using  a DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly with an accelerator wheel is on the close order of  25 hours.
• Wool yarns of less than 20 fibers are either fragile or require excessive twist resulting in a unpleasant yarn. I stopped producing wool singles finer than ~ 50,000 ypp.  My goal is to spin better yarns, not finer yarns.

I thought that I needed to make a new spinning bobbin for the Aldan Amos #0 flyer that I was using for fine singles. Along the way, I was going to photograph and describe the DRS spinning bobbin production process. With my revived coordination, I find that a new bobbin is not necessary, so I am just going to post pictures of the spinning bobbins that currently fit the AA flyers.

The AA #0 flyer/bobbin as delivered :

 Single on bobbin is the test single spun by SG.

  AA bobbin detail (ends bored out, brass flange bearings inserted, wood rings glued in to cover brass bearings)

Detail of AA whorl

Flyer with the (2d generation) DRS bobbin/whorl by me:

Bobbin and whorl of  tropical hardwood with Delrin bearings (thanks to Henry Clemes).  The wood was a scrap picked up inexpensively at a Rockler promotion.

Flyer/bobbin disassembled

Ends of bobbin bored out to receive bearings

AA #1 Flyer bobbin with 3d generation - DRS bobbin and whorls

These 11 whorl diameters provide ability to spin woolen and worsted singles from ~3,000 ypp to more than 45,000 ypp. Note the difference between whorl diameters is small.

Bearings for this flyer/bobbin assembly are replacement bearings for skate boards.  Bearing wise, this is over kill as differential rotation is only ~50 rpm.  However, the center of the bearing fits AA's flyer shaft, and this saves me some effort. The skate board bearings are much better than what my local hardware store sells, and much cheaper than what the local bearing specialist charges.

Detail of borings to receive bearings

Detail of bobbin shaft inserted into board cut bobbin end/whorl

All in all, not particularly pretty, but wickedly effective. The oak in the #1 bobbin is recycled from our kitchen remodel. Since then, I have moved to turning ALL whorls from maple to get a more even texture around the whorl, and avoid belt dressing build up at the cross grain.

Storage bobbins to fit 0.25" spindle:

 Front,  Right to Left; board cut redwood ends on redwood barrel, 2x redwood turned from solid blank, blank

Back, Right to Left;  reels for blocking singles, 2x board cut maple ends/whorl on maple barrel, blank for maple barrel. 

Turning tools:

For 5,600 ypp singles, and 50 mm whorls, required accuracy of whorl diameter is about 0.5 mm.

For 40,000 ypp singles, required accuracy of whorl diameter is higher.  Thus, turn a little larger than needed and sand down to final required diameter.  (If your tools are really sharp, no sanding is required for appearance.)

Use HSS tools and keep them very sharp.  A good procedure is to grind to shape, and then hone.  For honing, I use 400 grit emery belts on the Sorby Pro, or a diamond hone.  Do not try to burnish HSS turning tools.

My OLD Bedan  is carbon steel, and it can be BURNISHED and is sometimes used to clean up where the ends meet the barrel. (But was not used on the current generation of spinning bobbins  : )

Burnished tool steel is sharp, but does not hold an edge 

as well as honed HSS.  

If you use a good hone, and get the angles correct, then HSS is as sharp as the very best burnished tool steel edge, but a HSS edge lasts 10 times longer.  Finishing whorls, I figure the edge on my HSS tools lasts 10 minutes, thus a burnished tool steel edge lasts for ~ one cut.  Turning redwood bobbins from solid blanks, I can do a dozen bobbins in a hour without honing the HSS skew chisel I use.  Using tool steel tools, I have to stop and sharpen frequently, and only get half as many bobbins made in an hour.

Baby Talk

I have been accused of talking to my readers like children.The following sites talk to spinners as if the the spinners are babies and not a spinner complains! 

• http://www.spindizzy.net/Howto/dd_flyer.html
• http://joyofhandspinning.com/how-the-spinning-wheel-works/
• http://kromskina.com/single-drive-vs-double-drive-wheels/

In contrast, I give examples with actual measurements.  And, I tell you how to get better results.  Try asking Kromski how to spin fines! 

Spindizzy invokes the the same differential rotation speed (DRS) that Alden and I talk about.  We  do the math, and CAJ does it qualitatively.  The thing is: DRS is a clockwork mechanism, and  to make good clock work mechanisms, one needs to do the math, and get it correct. Then, one needs to fabricate the correct clockwork mechanism.  When spinning fines, a difference of 1 mm (1/25 ") in whorl diameters is important. DRS is simply not something that can be done qualitatively.

Joy of Hand spinning extols a high degree of twisting efficiency in DD,  just like I do.   Except, I use a tachometer and do the math. I tell you how much twist efficiency you can actually expect, and how you can improve your twist efficiency. These details are learned by doing.

Kromskina notes that DD generally spins the finest yarn.  I say, "DD will allow spinning fine yarns, much faster, but to use DD to spin the fine yarn quickly, the spinner needs the correct DRS."  The DRS that comes standard on Kromski is ~1.6, which is very good for spinning 1,600 ypp singles. Note that Kromski does not  supply the DRS for its whorls. By having the correct diameter of whorls to provided the needed DRS, I avoid slippage.  
 It is terrible for trying to spin 5,600 ypp lace singles. It will do it, but it is no faster or easier than Scotch Tension. The 5,600 ypp lace singles want a DRS of ~1.04, which is very different from a DRS of 1.6.  And, the flyer whorl that provides a DRS of 1.04, will NOT allow you to spin the singles for worsted weight 2-ply. As expressed, the Kromski statement is nonsense baby talk, but nobody complains.

If my wheel is set up at a DRS of 1.04, AND I need to spin worsted weight, I either change flier whorls or I run it single drive.  

I assure you that one can spin 45,000 ypp singles running single drive, but that you can spin such singles, twice as fast using DD with the correct DRS. And, 3 times as fast using DRS and an accelerator wheel.  That is the magic of DRS.

The continuous and limited take up of yarn as controlled by DRS allows the self assembly of the yarn. It is not discussed in the Big Blue Book, but it is this the self assembly of  yarn that makes DRS so productive. It is similar to the formation  of  yarn in the old flyer frames circa 1820. This self assembly of worsted yarn is rather similar to the formation of woolen yarn from a long draw draft. It means that the difference between true worsted and true woolen is simply the fiber preparation.  It means that one can spin worsted yarn much, much faster than one can inch worm draft such yarn.  I am sure it is why Alden gave the topic so much space in his Big Book of Handspinning.

The single drive setups are like pliers or adjustable wrenches.  DD is more like a mechanic's socket drive set. The socket drive set is fast, powerful, protects the nuts and bolt heads, but you need the full set.  The pliers and adjustable wrenches are handy, but they will not get into places that a socket drive set will get into, and adjustable wrenches are not as powerful or as fast as a good socket set.

Good mechanics have pliers and adjustable wrenches, but their socket wrench set(s)  let them work quickly and do high quality work.  I have a socket set for working on machines, and I have a set of DD whorls to provide the proper DRS for working on fiber. They allow me to work quickly and do high quality work.

These days every good mechanic uses a power screw driver/ nut and bolt driver.  It improves productivity.   Likewise, I use an accelerator wheel to improve my productivity.  Just as power bolt drivers work better with sockets than with adjustable devices, the accelerator wheel works much better with DRS than with single drive flyer bobbin assemblies.  Spinning worsted with single drive systems requires drafting techniques that cannot be sustained at those speeds, while with DRS and properly prepared fiber, worsted yarn of the correct grist/twist will self assemble a the end of the drafting triangle. A typical commercial spinning wheel can insert twist at about 1,000 rpm. With DRS and an accelerator wheel, spinning at ~3,000 rpm is easy, and spinning at 4,000 rpm is sustainable, and 4.500 rpm is possible when highly motivated.  The drafting process for woolen is very similar, but carded rolags are used instead of combed pencil roving.

Some readers have noted that some of my 10s are "twitted", (the term of art for thick and thin yarns resulting from small variations in roving density as a result of storage or transport). It is easily avoided by re-combing (or by spinning ever so slowly and inch worming the draft) .  On the other hand, when my hanks are within 5% of the correct grist and the twitting does not affect the final objects, I do worry about it.  Sometimes it is nice to be able to use roving out of the bag.  

I judge my final objects, not my yarn. I simply make sure that my yarn is within specification to make a good final object. And always I ask, " Did I get value?".  Or, Did I go over budget? Or, was my level of effort too high?  An object that goes over budget is just as bad as an object that is not functional.  In fact, I would say that a small amount of twitting is desirable, as it adds 'home spun" character without detracting from warmth, durability, drape, or hand. 

The Need

I have not been honest.

A major reason reason for pushing the  bounds of hand textile production technology was to provide a "Plan B" as sea level rise from Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) destroys industrial textile production. Thus, I want hand textile production to be fast enough to produce ordinary and functional fiber and textile products at a reasonable economic price.  This includes linen, cotton, nettle, wool, and other fibers.

In 1991, as I realized that the IPCC climate models dramatically understated the potential of sea level rise, I thought the loss of industrial fiber and textile production could be taken up by skills (widely) held by amateurs.  Then, my wife bought me a hand knit fisherman's sweater in Nova Scotia, and I about froze wearing it salmon fishing off the coast of  California. This was a warning that modern hand made textiles are not practical in the functional world.

Above is a swatch of British Breeds gansey yarn knit at a modern gauge.  That is OK, if the Coast Guard has helicopters standing by, and  there is a Weather Service to warn of storms.

Same grist of yarn, same stitch pattern, but constructed on the assumption that there is no Coast Guard or Weather Service.   This is the fabric that was knit from  handspun 5-ply on "knitting pins".  It is just enough tighter to close the little tiny holes in the modern gauge swatch that let the heat leak out.   

Before mill spun, the fishermen on the North Atlantic survived by wearing sweaters hand knit from hand spun that were warmer than anything modern hand knitters and hand spinners typically produce. On the second trip to Nova Scotia, it became clear to me that these traditional textile production skills used to produce warm clothing  had been lost. And worse, the hand spinners and hand knitters did not recognize what had been lost. They were still bragging about how warm their hand-spun and hand knit objects were. I watched historical enactors drop from hypothermia and get hauled away to hospital by ambulance. (The drivers wore store bought.) The site was closed due to cold weather. Battlements that had been guarded day and night, summer and winter, for 300 years were cleared on a fine spring day - due to cold. I was wearing a hand knit gansey as I stood on those battlements watching the whole thing until we were told to leave. (The guards wore store bought.)  I was not cold.  Modern spinners and knitters brag about how warm their handspun/ handknit is because they do not regularly compare the warmth of the objects that they make with the degree of warmth required for humans to stay functional in cold weather.  The truth is that cold people fall down.

I remember when a rock climbing buddy's mother gave him a very fine, hand knit Fair Isle sweater for Christmas.  Then, he had to move at New Year's and he used that new sweater as packing material and discarded it afterwards because, it was "too heavy for the warmth!"  He laughed at me for starting to knit. He kept laughing at me until one year, I gave him a pair of gansey knit ski socks for Christmas.  Six weeks later, he offered me $200 to knit hims a pair of hiking socks.  By then, my handknitting was different from any hand knitting he had ever seen.

We would go snow camping, and take with us a bag full of the best gear from Patagonia and Marmot.
(http://www.patagonia.com/us/home)  and (http://marmot.com/ )
We would compare the performance of my knit wear with the gear from Patagonia and Marmot.  Pretty soon, I stopped bothering with much of the store bought stuff. (Marmot parkas and guide pants are still useful.)

You may not like the way my stuff looks, but if I am going to be in the cold, it is what I want to wear. It is very functional.  However, it is functional because I bother with things like multi-ply yarns, and knitting tightly. I can spin multi-ply yarns and still finish the object because I work fast.  And, spinning is not my life. I need to finish my spinning and do other things.  If I worked slowly, I would not have the objects to wear. Then, I would either have to wear store bought, or freeze.

So, what happens to industrial textile production as sea level rises?  Most of our textile production is near sea level and a small amount of sea level rise ends most textile production. (No more store bought!!)

How fast is sea level likely to rise?  The IPCC models say slowly, but they do not consider ice dynamics.  The IPCC models assume the ice will melt in situ.  Watch Chasing Ice, the sequence starting at minute 64. (or see clip at http://www.businessinsider.com/chasing-ice-glacier-calving-climate-change-2014-10) to see how it is likely to go.  As ice warms, it loses tensile strength, and then under goes a progressive structural collapse.  For example, defrost your freezer - first it drips, then chunks of ice start falling off the racks.  Watch the ice melt off of the roof of a ski lodge - first it drips, then big chunks of ice fall.  A glacier calving into the ocean, drips, then big pieces fall. All of these are examples of ice losing tensile strength as it warms.

Now we know that all of our big ice has the potential for sea water to come in under it.  Antarctica sits on the top of sea mounts.  Greenland has many deep fjords that run under the ice.  Both of these conditions allow the rapid breakup of  ice as seen in the Chasing Ice clip.  Both Antarctica and  Greenland have the potential for the kind of progressive structural collapse on a large scale that is seen in a very small scale in minute 64 of Chasing Ice.

In the last interglacial, we know that sea level rose 40 feet in 500 years, and we cannot be certain that it was a gradual rise.  It may have been a period of punctuated equilibrium where most of the sea level rise occurred in a few brief events. In the last few climate changes, there were several period when hominid populations dropped from 95% to 99% of normal population. This However current climate forcing is 10 times greater than it was then. Thus, a reasonable planning case for sea level rise is meters in decades, and we can expect larger drops in hominid populations.  Such planning is like house insurance.  You many not really expect a house fire (odds are 1 in 100,000), but you have insurance. With AGW, if we have planned for meters/decade, and sea level rise is only meters per century, then we will be OK.  However, if we plan for millimeters per century and sea level comes as meters per decade, then we will not be OK.

A sea level rise of meters in decades is fast enough to incapacitate industrial fiber production (synthetics and cotton) faster than the facilities (and their infrastructure) can be moved.  And, modern hand spinners have lost the skills that spinners used for generations and generations to economically produce the fibers needed to conquer the world.  What are we going to do for clothing?

The needs are food, water, shelter, and clothing. Sure there is a lot of clothing around that can be reused by a smaller population. (I expect a 99.99%  reduction in population.) However, most of that clothing is not well made and will fall apart in a few years.  In the face of the known, and unknown challenges, I do not expect the current generation of hand spinners to have much effect on the future of textiles. Current spinners tend to look to the Victorians, rather than to the older professional spinning traditions.  Current spinners do not tend to make new tools and develop new techniques to ensure a vibrant future in the craft of spinning.  I will tell you this; somebody will need a faster spinning wheel, because more twist makes hand made objects warmer and more durable, and we are going to need warm and durable.

It is called global warming, because of what happens at sea level.  However, the top of the atmosphere actually cools, and cold air tends to sink - so there will be blasts of ice cold air driving big storms.  Global warming does not mean that we will not need very warm woolies.

If you do not have acute symptoms of stress, such as high blood pressure, vomiting, diarrhea, panic, and depression, then you do not understand the acute nature of the AGW situation. It is too late to avoid catastrophic AGW. The best we can do at this stage is plan to adapt to catastrophic AGW.

My cheerful observation is that anyone that can spin wool well, can very quickly learn to spin other fibers well.

If you want cites, Google is your friend.  And, look at the proceedings of the AGU, particularly the posters on GIS.  Stuff about the summer 2012 melt on GIS is just coming out, and folks are just starting to realize how important structure is to ice sheet behavior.  Water increases the load on an ice structure without providing any extra strength.   When one adds load to a structure, without adding strength, eventually the structure collapses.  The days of treating ice sheets as a black box on a film of water are over.

Twist and grist

I said, that for a hand spinner, inserted twist defines grist. A test is reported below showing that hand spinners can control grist to plus or minus 5%.  Can you control grist better?

This summer I have been spinning "10s" - worsted 5,600 ypp singles.

I wound a dozen hanks of 560 yards and weighed them.  Each should weigh ~45.4 grams.

I used a particular set of flyer bobbin whorls, spun 7 or 8 grams of single, then wound it off onto a storage bobbin. Then, I wound the storage bobbin on to a skeiner, blocked the hank with steam, and weighed it.

Mostly the hanks weighed right in the range of 43 to 48 grams.  Thus, by using DRS to control twist, it is possible for hand spinners to control grist to within plus or minus 5% over samples of 560 yards and maintain a specific grist over projects of many hanks.

Smaller samples tell me that this can be done with 20s or 40s.  I did samples of finer singles in the middle of the above test.  It is possible to spin 10s, then spin much finer 20s and 40s, and then go to back to spinning 10s at the same grist as before.

The 8 lb of  5s loom warp that I did last year with the smaller and less precise whorls, runs about plus or minus 12%.  (At the time, I thought the yarn was reasonably consistent for hand spun, and was very happy to have hanks anywhere in the range of 80 to 100 grams.)

By planning twist, one can control grist.  This is deep inside the world of  "the intentional spinner." The only path here, that I know, is DRS.  Without DRS I do not think you are going to be able to control grist to within 5%.  Without DRS, it is going to take you much, much longer to spin 7,000 yard of 5,600 ypp,  2,240 yd of 11,400 ypp and 1,120 yd of 22,400 ypp singles. Really, how many tries would it take you to spin a 560 yd hank of single that weighs between 10.5 and 12.5 grams? With DRS, I can be reasonably confident of spinning such a 40s on the first try.

It was not always like that.  Better tools brought better skills.  Better skills let me design and make better tools, and so forth.

Today, I find the omission of DRS by Judith Mackenzie to be grievous.  When my variation on grist  with DRS was 12%, and SG told me she could maintain grist within 10%,  I could give a pass to intuitive spinners who did not discuss DRS.  However, now that I know more of the control that DRS can provide, then failure to discuss DRS is a serious error and omission.  Alden Amos at least brings the topic up and discusses the math, even if he does not get into the details of hand movements and mechanics.

The end of another chapter in this blog

Using only bushing bearings of bronze-steel, wood-steel, and leather-steel available in 1500, a spinning wheel using DRS can run at 4,000 rpm on a sustained basis. This is based on multiple 6 and 8 hour trials.

In contrast, contestants using spinning wheels at SOAR spinning contests operated their spinning wheels at ~ 500 rpm for 15 minute race periods.

It is clear that a motivated spinner that understands the craft can spin 8 times faster than the average wheel spinner in a SOAR spinning contest. In the 2009 contest, the spindle spinners spun 2.4 times faster than the wheel spinners. However, a motivated spinner that understands the craft and has an appropriate wheel can spin 3.3 times faster than the spindle spinners can spin for 15 minutes, then the wheel spinner can continue spinning at that same rate for another 7.75 hours, so this is not at all a fair comparison.

Working with a wheel running at 4,000 rpm, a spinner circa 1500 could spin about a million yards per year of worsted single with a grist of 10,000 yards per pound.  That would be about 2 pounds of yarn or  40 hanks per week.  Many spinners would require between 44 and 48 hours of to spin 40 hanks, so it would be a long, hard week.  Twenty -two hanks of 40s or or 48 hanks of 10s would be a similar amount of labor.

With that, I am moving on to ball bearings, and other marvels of the 20th century.  With ball bearings the wheel is quieter at 4,500 rpm than it was with bronze bushings at 3,500 rpm.

The Great Proposition

I assert that spinning worsted singles can be divided into drafting and inserting twist.  I assert that the wool most naturally and easily assembles into bundles of about 20 fibers. A single of 20 staples is the spin count of the wool.  At 20 staples a 70 count will spin to 70 hanks per pound and a 40 count wool will spin to 40 hanks per pound.

Thus, if you need 30,000 ypp singles,  I think it is easier to spin them from 54 count wool than from a 70 count wool such as Merino.  I think that it is easier to spin 22,400 ypp singles from 40 count wool than from 50 or 70 count wools such as Suffolk or Merino.

Using either the right spin count wool or the finer wool, the required twist is the same. The only thing different is the drafting effort.  And, I think that a smooth, uniform single is more easily drafted when the spin count of the wool matches the spin count of the desired single.

This goes directly against the current conventional wisdom.  However, mostly that wisdom is recited by folks without much experience in spinning various wools at their spin count.

Motivation

Sometimes it is hard to maintain a good rate of spinning - I tend to slow down.

One technique is to use a metronome.  I set it to the desired beat, and let it pace me.

I have a small inexpensive electronic metronome, not much bigger than a business card.  I think it cost ~$10. I have a free app for my smart phone.  Both work.

There is a note in my spinning journal as to twist insertion rate/ bobbin rpm for various metronome settings.

Spinning faster

Why not spin faster?

Is it more work?  No, with my Alden Amos flies it actually takes less physical effort effort to spin length of yarn that it takes to spin the same length of yarn with the Ashford stock flyers. I have a different ratio, so I do not have to treadle any faster, and it takes less treadle effort. So, it comes down to a matter of drafting the yarn. Drafting faster is a matter of skill - not more skill, but of different skills.

Now, I am going to sit at my wheel for 3 or 4 hours.  Do I want to get up with 350 yards of yarn or with 1,600 yards of yarn?  What is the difference?  Slightly different wheel setup and holding my hands differently.  The physical effort is almost the same.

Spinning faster is a matter of working smarter rather than working harder.  Spinning faster is a matter of learning the craft so one can spin more with less effort.

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.

Stone Whorls

My sister is a world class goldsmith.  Since he retired in 1980, my father has been doing lapidary work for my sister.  He does fine, one of  kind, gems for her small sculptures.

Fifteen yeas ago he bought a big lot of fine jade, and for the last couple of years we have talked about him making me some stone whorls from that jade. My sister has superb drawing skills and he is accustomed working from drawings. Along the way, I did a lot of calculations.   I made spindles that accepted interchangeable whorls, and tested various shapes of whorls.  I bought "whorl" beads of various kinds and tested them. At one point, I made a full set of  CAD files for the project.   And, I talked to folks like Stephenie that have collections of  real neolithic spindle whorls.

My conclusions were:

1. Stone spindle whorls are fragile and they tend to get lost. 

As a result, I expected production spinners to use the least expensive whorls available.  This is born out by the large number of crude stone and ceramic whorls that  have been found. My response was to use machine made whorl beads.  Today, a broad variety are available, and can easily be tested.

2.  "Carved" whorl beads tend not to be very well balanced so that substantial amounts of rotational energy goes into gyroscopic stabilization rather than into twist, and spindles with carved whorl beads tend to slow rapidly. The  goal of spinning is to insert twist quickly.   Energy going anywhere but to insert twist is BAD.

3,  Carved whorl beads tend to have more aerodynamic drag and hence tend to slow more rapidly.

4.  Production spinners, seeking to spin as fast as possible are very unlikely to use carved whorl beads  in their production spinning. Carved whorl beads are a store of value, rather than a functional tool for rapid yarn production.

5.  I preferred smaller, higher density whorls made of metal.  For example brass is ~ 2.5 times denser than jade. I quickly discovered that for fast (worsted) spinning, I liked small, well balanced brass whorls much better than even very well balanced jade whorls. And, the metal whorls were cheaper, and less fragile. In any industry, production workers who buy their own tools, like cheap and durable.  I made a lot of brass whorls to test.  I liked the way the worst of the brass whorls spun better than the way the best stone whorls spun.  I came to feel that better spindles and therefore cheaper textiles was one of the major contributions of the bronze age. I told my dad not to bother making those stone whorls for me.

The above was all done when I was mostly spinning and thinking about worsted 5-ply knitting yarn with singles running 5,600 ypp.

This summer, I have been thinking about woolen spun yarns for weaving.  Woolen is a different kind of drafting and it makes different demands on the spindle.  Why should I use the same spindle for woolen and for worsted spinning?  Why does a spindle used for woolen spinning need the large moment of inertia provided by a whorl?  

The way (with a hand spindle) to quickly spin a lot of woolen yarn  with a hand spindle is with a 'twisty stick'.  A whorl just slows things down.  Yes, you need a whorl for worsted spinning (wool or cotton).  Yes, you need a whorl for linen, hemp, and nettles.  Do your physics home work, and calculate the moment of inertia that you require for your current spinning project.  It may be smaller than you think.

The best fiber in the world

is clean (except for spinning oil) and freshly combed or carded.  Really!

Last night, a member of a local spinning guild was destashing fiber, and she brought in a big pile of very nice fiber.  I did not have my trusty twisty stick, with me, but without asking the price, I bought a couple big bags full.  One bag is white long wool, maybe 40 count, and I plan to spin it at maybe 10 count. It is just beautiful stuff, I know it will spin Fast and Easy.  Fiber Porn.

I get home and toss it on the distaff, put the 5,600 ypp bobbin on the wheel, and that fiber does not want to spin.  Yes, I can coax thread out of it, but it breaks off every couple of yards.  This is not what I wanted.  This is like work.   This is spinning purgatory.  I wanted something that was like a video game, where the fiber slides into to the hungry orifice, and the only question is, "How fast can one feed the monster?"

So, this afternoon,  I spray a handful of the fiber with spinning oil, and I comb enough to fill a distaff. It takes 5 minutes. Boom!  It spins like a dream - 6 yards a minute without any problem, because it is the best fiber in the world.

Understand the Spindle! part 2

In Part I, I mentioned mass that is farther from the center of rotation slows the rotation of the spindle.  This is a dramatic effect.  Suppose you have a spindle with a 12 gram whorl in the shape of a flat disk. If that whorl is 1 inch in diameter, then the speed will be X for one "flick" that gives the spindle rotation.  If the spindle is made with a thinner whorl, then a 2 inch diameter whorl, still weighted at 12 grams, have a speed of X/8.  If the spindle is made still thinner so that it has to be 3 inches across to weight 12 grams, then the speed will be X/27.  That is, a spindle with a 1 inch whorl will spin 27 times faster than a spindle with a 3 inch whorl when they both carry the same rotation energy.  When spinning yarns of the same grist, the spindle with the 3" whorl will deliver its energy to the yarn much more slowly and be much more suited to spinning thicker yarns that require much less twist per inch.  The 3" whorl also has a longer lever arm and thus can deliver more torque.  Thicker yarn requires more torque to insert  twist into the yarn.  Thus, large whorls are better suited to spinning thicker yarns and small diameter wholes are better suited to spinning finner singles.

Cupped and rim weighted whorls, where even more of the weight of the whorl is farther from the axis of rotation result in even slower spindle rotation. This is not bad if you are learing to draft, but it is no good if you want to spin a lot of fine yarn, fast. The classic example is the CD spindle  (http://danielson.laurentian.ca/qualityoflife/Fulltext/Textiles/Making_a_cd_drop_spindle.htm ).  These are spindle with wide, thin whorls that spin slowly for a long time.  The classic Russian supported spindle (http://askthebellwether.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-do-you-spin-on-russian-spindle.html) has its whorl very thick and close to the axis of rotation.  As I look around, the Russian support spindle and the Tahkli are the most comon fast spindles around.  However, it was not always so. 

We find large numbers of small "whorl beads" at sites around the world. see http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/139611.html , http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/140002024 , http://antiquegreeks.info/?s=Bead+Spindle&c=37906 , http://www.stringpage.com/viking/spindles.html , and  http://www.woolery.com/store/pc/Medieval-Spindles-c281.htm .  Were these really used for spinning or were they just decorative beads?  Using metal machine nuts of size and weight similar to those described on the Viking page, I have made spindles that spin fine threads fast. To modern spinners that are accustomed to spinning with modern spindles that spin slowly, these spindles with small whorl beads spin disconcertingly fast.  Unlike the supported Russian and Tahkli spindles that are spun up with a flick, these top and bottom whorl spindles that I have been making can be spun up with thigh rolls and 2-handed tosses to truely high speeds.  Speeds that spindles with mass on a longer leverarm cannot match.

Nobody using a modern Peruvian spindle such as (http://abbysyarns.com/2011/02/peruvian-spindles-my-spindles) can spin that fast, because their spindles are have evolved by tradition to spin slower, with more torque to spin the coarse singles being produced for local utilitarian consumption.  In fact, there are modern Peruvian spinners that use metal machine nuts as spindle whorls. These spinners do spin fine threads fast, they just have not gotten as much publicity.

I do not want a spindle that spins for a long time.  When spinning fine threads (e.g., 100 wpi and much finer) , I want a spindle that transfers its energy to the thread  -- very rapidly.  That means, the spindle is spinning fast.  When my spinlde is inserting twist rapidly, it is putting energy into the thread and that loss of that energy will slow the spindle down rapidly. Thinking that a spindle can insert twist and keep on spinning is like believing in perpetual motion machines. Spindles store energy, they do not create energy.  A spindle that spins for a long time means that it is not transfering its energy to the thread.  A spindle that spins for a long time means that it is spinning slowly, transfering its energy to the thread slowly, and it is inserting twist slowly.  I am not saying that this is bad. It is necessary for thick yarns and for spinners that are slow drafters.  I am saying that traditional spinners used spindles that made spinning the kind of yarn that they wanted to spin easier and faster.  However, today we have a lot of spindles for spinning all kinds of yarns thrown on to the market, and they are not labeled as to what kind of yarn they were designed to spin.  Moreover, modern spinning teachers do not explain in any kind of  detail WHY such and such a spindle is better for a particular project.