Salish Spinner

I went to an amazing estate sale last week and picked up some fiber arts equipment, supplies and books.  I got many issues of Spin Off, cotton carpet warp, a $100 Macomber loom, and a broken Salish bulky spinner for $30, along with some hand knitted sweaters and a handmade cotton coverlet for my bed.  The ladies who lived in that house were incredibly creative, and their interests were diverse.  I hope that their spirits will guide my own creative endeavors using what they left behind.

Here is the Salish spinner:

 

When I bought it, it was missing its drive wheel and footman.  I thought about bringing it to Ron Antoine for professional restoration, but my own love of tinkering led me to a different approach.  The Salish Coast people would often attach the flyer and bobbin unit to an old treadle sewing machine stand, or they would build their own mechanism, depending on their means and what they had on hand.  Many of the bulky spinners built later sport a cast iron drive wheel similar to the kind found on a treadle sewing machine.  Off to eBay I went to obtain a sewing machine drive wheel, after measuring the one on my 1912 Singer to make sure that it would fit in the rather narrow space allowed for it.  Attaching the drive wheel took some work, and I still would like to make bearings for a couple of places where metal moving parts are in direct contact with the wood.

 

How it spins, though!  And the flyer and bobbin are massive! I've already packed the bobbin with Border Leicester yarn for a chunky grey rug.



Celia kitty for scale

I still have to make the axle support pretty (jigsaw and stain to reflect the color and shape of the original broken support) and I would like to make a nicer footman.  Many of these wheels had broad leather drive belts, but I'm thinking of using a thick poly belt.  The drive system relies on serious grip from the drive band and no slippage.  It's a bobbin led wheel, where the drive band only acts on the bobbin groove, and the tension on the yarn from the spinner's hand drags the flyer around with the bobbin.  It's a terribly inefficient system, but also dastardly simple.  With a simple cord as a drive belt, I have to keep the tension very high and the whole system plentifully greased, which is wasteful of oil and hard on the wheel.  I waxed the drive band with beeswax for grip, as I do with my great wheel, and this went a long way to reduce slippage.  With a stretchy band, it should spin sweetly at a much lower tension.  There is a string brake band at the front of the flyer, but I haven't needed it.  The sheer weight of the bobbin maintains a reasonable take-up rate.  This may change when it has a better drive band and runs more efficiently.

I see some serious rug weaving in my future!