Troubleshoot Bobbin Winder: The Needlebar Won't Stop Going Up and Down. It's not absolutely necessary to do this, but it saves your sewing machine a bit of wear and tear. To do this, you'll hold onto the balance wheel and turn the stop motion screw (the silver knob inside the balance wheel) toward you. Wheel, you can be assured that there is not another wheel in the world that will be exactly like yours. UNPACKING YOUR WHEEL Remove the accessory box. Remove the treadle assembly by tipping the wheel back to allow the treadle assembly to slide past. Remove packing materials. Lift the wheel straight up and out of the box.
Spinning is a fascinating process that has been around for thousands of years, but understanding the fundamentals can help make you a better spinner.Yarn can be classified by how many strands are twisted together. If you twist fiber so it forms a string you have single-ply yarn, or a single.
Multi-ply yarn is twisting 2 or more of those singles together. For this article we will just be simply referring to “multi-ply yarn” as “yarn” since that is what most spinners do. This is 2 ply Z-twist yarn.A spinning wheel takes the animal or plant fibers and twists them together into a single. In a separate step, the spinning wheel also plies two or more of those singles together into yarn by plying them in the opposite direction of the single. So, if your spinning wheel is going clockwise while spinning the singles you should run it counter clockwise during plying. If you don’t ply in the opposite direction of the singles, you’ll see that the plying over twists the singles and the singles don’t nicely wrap around each other.
Try plying in the wrong direction one time and you’ll quickly see how the yarn just won’t look or feel right.When plying yarn, you’ll either get Z-twist or S-twist yarn depending on the direction your flyer is spinning. In the image to the right you can see how Z-twist goes up and to the right, but S-twist goes up and to the left. Your twist depends on the type of the spinning wheel you have, so generally the easiest way to figure this out is to spin some fiber and look at it. The difference between S-twist and Z-twist yarn.Now that we have covered the basics of the different types of twisting that make yarn, let’s discuss how the spinning wheel puts the twist into yarn by focusing on singles. At the most basic level, a spinning wheel consists of the flyer and the bobbin. There are three main types of spinning wheels that drive the bobbin and flyer in different ways. Scotch Tension has the drive belt on the flyer, and a tension band on the bobbin makes the bobbin spin slower than the flyer which adds twist.
Irish Tension has the drive belt on the bobbin, and a tension band on the flyer makes the flyer spin slower than the bobbin which adds twist. Lastly the Double Drive has a drive belt on both the flyer and the bobbin, and different gear ratios cause the flyer and belt to spin at different speeds.Sometimes the tension band is called a brake band. This is because it acts like a brake and slows either the flyer or bobbin down. This shows a flyer in yellow and a bobbin in green.
#1 is where the drive belt or brake band is attached to the flyer and #2 is where the drive belt or tension band is attached to the bobbin. Scotch Tension – #1 is a drive belt, and #2 is a tension band. Irish Tension – #1 is a tension band, and #2 is a drive belt. Double Drive – #1 is a drive belt, and #2 is a drive beltWith all these different types of spinning wheels the important part to remember is the flyer and bobbin are spinning at different rates.
Making singles depends on one spinning faster than the other. The spinning wheel is both twisting the fiber and wrapping it around the bobbin. To see how that’s happening let’s think about what happens in some extreme cases on a Scotch Tension spinning wheel.With Scotch Tension what happens if the flyer is turning and the bobbin is not because you have a high tension setting? If the bobbin is not turning, the fiber goes onto the bobbin with no twist. So, the single would fall apart because there would be no twists to hold it together. In the other extreme, what happens if the flyer and bobbin are turning at the same speed? Twist is being applied to the fiber, but no fiber is pulled onto the bobbin.
The fiber will keep twisting until it breaks. This is obviously too much twist in the yarn.For Irish Tension it’s a little different. So in one extreme when the flyer is stopped and the bobbin is spinning there is no twist. In the other extreme where both flyer and bobbin are spinning at the same speed there is too much twist (this case is the same as Scotch Tension).So, what makes good yarn is the difference in the speed of rotation of the flyer and the bobbin. A smaller difference in rotational speeds between the flyer and bobbin will result in yarn being pulled onto the bobbin more slowly and thus a higher twist per inch. Remember, the smaller the difference in rotational speed between the flyer and bobbin the more twist there will be.When spinning you must consider one more factor, which is uptake. Uptake is the amount of pull on the fiber.
![Turning Turning](/uploads/1/2/3/8/123866858/989518319.jpg)
If you feel a lot of uptake, then there is too much tension on the bobbin. On the other hand, if there is no uptake, then the rotation of the bobbin is zero and your single will get too much twist. If you let the uptake pull the fiber into the wheel too quickly then your single will not have much twist. The point here is while the tension band is what creates uptake, the final decision on how much yarn actually goes on the bobbin is your fingers, which is holding the fiber. So, even if there is a lot of uptake if your fingers aren’t letting fiber onto the bobbin then the bobbin will spin at the same rate as the flyer, and you will have over twisted yarn. With practice a spinner gets the feel for all this and will let the spinning wheel pull in fibers at a ratio that will give their singles the amount of twist the spinner wants.There you have it.
![Custom spinning wheel bobbins Custom spinning wheel bobbins](/uploads/1/2/3/8/123866858/626072103.jpg)
If you have any questions let me know either in the comments or with.
Adjust the drive band tensionTake all of the tension, including the scotch brake, off the wheel. When you treadle, the wheel should turn while the flyer stays still. Keep tightening the drive band tension until you hear a whooshing sound from the drive band. That is the sound of the drive band skipping. The flyer should start to barely turn; tighten it just until that sound goes away. Do not put more tension on the drive band unless you hear that sound again.Put on a bobbinIf you have the wheel-maker’s instructions, it should tell you how to replace the bobbin. If you do not have the instructions, every wheel should have some way to take the flyer off so that you can replace the bobbin.Take the flyer off.
If it has whorls screwed to the end of the shaft, take them off as well.Slip the bobbin on the shaft, and make sure that it turns easily. Replace the whorls and the flyer.Make sure that the maidens are at right angles to the mother-of-all.Some bobbins are designed to be used with either double-drive or single-drive wheels. They have a groove for the drive band (also called a whorl) on either end. One end should have a small whorl, and the other end should have a much bigger one. Remember to put the drive band on the big end of bobbin if you are using a scotch brake, and on the small end if you are using a double drive. The wheel should still work if you put them on the wrong way, but it will not work well.Pass it around the bobbin.Put the loose ends through the loop and tighten.Loop it again around the bobbin in the opposite direction and pass the loose ends through the loop.
Pull tight.Thread the leader over the hooks and through the orifice with the orifice hooks.You should bend your orifice hook. The curved shape makes it easier to pick up the yarn as it comes through the orifice.Adjust the bobbin tensionNo matter what type of wheel you are using, there should be a way to tension the bobbin. Tension on the bobbin makes the yarn feed either more quickly or more slowly onto the wheel:On bobbin-driven wheels like the Louet, the tension can be changed on the bobbin by increasing or decreasing the drive band tension, and the flyer tension gives finer control.On a single drive: Hold on to the leader with the fiber hand. The spinning hand makes all of the adjustments to the wheel.
Now treadle the wheel.If the leader pulls out of your hand, then loosen the scotch brake by loosening it. If the leader feels like you have to push it on the wheel, adjust tighten the brake.On a double drive: The adjustments for the drive band and the bobbin are made using the same tension device; when you tension one, you tension both of them. Although this is not as precise as the scotch brake, you always have the same ratio between the bobbin and the flyer.