Hand Spindle

A basic spinning spindle, nothing fancy. 13" long overall, 3" diameter oak whorl, mahogany spindle. Brass hook, and a small brass nail in the bottom end to protect the tip when dropped. (That's "when", not "if" as anyone who has used these watched someone use them knows).

Photo Details

kengrunke

Registered: November 2004
Location: La Farge, SW Wisconsin USA
Posts: 199

0

Date: Mon May 25, 2009
Views: 1,085
Keywords: hand spindle

Comments

Bill Bolen

Don't know a thing about them but your attention to detail is quite obvious. Very nicely done...Bill..

#1 Mon May 25, 2009 10:04pm

Mark Damron

Very interesting,it looks like the spindle has a slight taper to it? Was this made for someone?

#2 Mon May 25, 2009 11:42pm

Ken, I've made several of these for home spinners of wool. I made the first of them from a single piece of oak, ash, maple and myrtle. They worked well enough but the users complained that they had no enertia=too light. I now do one of two things: 1. I weight the disk (whorl) portion w/inlaid lead or 2. I turn the "spindle" from any wood but I turn the "whorl" from Mountain Mahogany and slip it over the "spindle." I'm about to make two for an alpaca wool spinner from myrtle and alabaster.

Also do not use plated hooks. The plating will wear off & the hooks will rust.

#3 Tue May 26, 2009 9:17pm

Mike Baber

Sounds interesting, they turned out nice, hope the new owners appreciates all your work!

Wizzy

#4 Tue May 26, 2009 9:37pm

kengrunke

Sorry guys, I didn't realize I was getting any comments on this.
I made a few spindles of various designs on speculation at the suggestion of a friend, and have sold 3. I was going to put this one on my Etsy.com store but ain't got a round tuit yet. My friend suggested I make 1 oz and 2 oz spindles, this is a 2 ouncer.
Only two pieces of wood here, the whorl and the spindle. The whorl is thinned out between the center and the rim, which is thicker for a better flywheel effect.
The hook is solid brass, actually 1/16" brazing wire.
The spindle does have a slight taper, from about 5/16" to 1/4" whorl to tip.
I turn the whorl seperately, and use a reamer to size the hole so I can use a dedicated gage to size the shaft.
Check out the thread in the forum by Brad Mortenson, it's a really good discussion on drop spindles--underdog, I see you found it.

http://www.woodturnersresource.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1241566372/0

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

#5 Sat June 13, 2009 3:43pm