Front view....
Side view....
Rear view...
Okay, hands up who knows what it is. Thought so...not many of you. Well don't feel bad about it because I had not a clue either before I brought it home from spinning group on Tuesday and got going on Google looking for it.
All I knew about it was that it was called a Wind Wheel, that it belonged to a very elderly and now long retired spinner that lives locally and that she had given it on long term loan to the group. She said she never got on with it. (We got her Ashford Traditional too.) None of us could get on with it either...umpteen years of collective spinning between us and we could not get it to spin. It does not have a drive band per se you see. It has a weighted pulley arrangement at the bottom that flicks over and a drive belt that rotates the massive flyer. It is very, very different from anything I've used before. I regard myself as a bit of a wheel geek-groupie, but this wheel is something else again.
Anyhow, after a bit of Googling I discovered my ...err, our new aquisition was an Ettrick Windwheel, that it was pronounced "wind" as in wind up the bobbin rather than "wind" as in gentle breezes and it comes from Australia.
Actually this last bit I could have discovered much more quickly if I'd looked round the rear of the wheel.
"Tasmanian Blackwood". How cool is that? If you stuck a knitting needle through a globe you'd find Tasmania is the furthest part of the other side of the world from Musselburgh. And the tree from which this wheel is made grew there. (It's a type of acacia.) It's fabulous wood and the whole wheel, from design to wood to style to polish is just so exotic. It sat there at spinning group in amongst our Ashfords and Kromskis and Haldanes looking like a rare tropical bird that had got lost.
Anyhow, there was still the problem of the fact that none of us could get it to spin. So as official Wheel Geek and Person that Hangs Out on the Internet Most I was given the task of sorting this out. I emailed the maker, Norman Walters , asking for scans of the assembly plans and spinning instructions. He very kindly sent these and now...I'm barraging him with techie questions, poor man. And some queries as to the design history.
I'm also talking to two Ravelry members from Australia, Zephyrama and Jenwren, both of whom own Windwheels. Now this is one of the most amazing things about Ravelry IMHO...the fact that I can go into it and hunt down a couple of spinners who knew exactly what I need to know to get this wheel going. Wow....!
Still can't spin on it though. I'm pretty sure I've got it set up right but it's the action of this pulley bit that really gets to me.
You have to sort of tap the treadle with your toe to get it up over the top of the turn, then the brass weights pull it down and round and momentum carries it up to the top of the turn and then you toe-tap again...but inbetween taps, if you push down on any part of the treadle plate the drive band will slip on the pulley. If you don't tap at the right moment the band slips up top here.....
...and the pulley reverses and you lose momentum and really, it all goes to hell in a handcart. It's the complete opposite of normal treadling on a single treadle wheel, where you have to be smooth and think rouuuuuund treadling, with only a little extra over the hump at the top. I feel like a beginner spinner again...you know, when you're kicking the wheel halfway across the room at every treadle stroke and it keeps reversing on you? Well this is it all over again.
I'm going to crack it by Saturday though. Saturday is the monthly meet up day for the Edinburgh Guild of Spinners and I am taking the Windwheel along to be admired. I'm going to look a bloomin' prat if I can't get it to work, am I not?
Off to practice....
14 comments:
Aww I can't make it on Saturday, not fair :|
Have you thought maybe it needs something to reduce the slippage slightly? Maybe some violin rosin on the lower pulley wheel? It's what we now use on the leather belting of treadle sewing machines. The leather may be too smooth and slide on the metal wheels of the machine so a little aid to friction helps things 'go' better.
well, if anyone can make it work, you can!
sorry about your awful month though
oh my, it's rather beautiful though, isn't it? Good luck...
That is a beautiful wheel with a lovely history.
I hope you can get her working. When is the next guild meeting, I'd love to try to get there.
Shoot! I couldn't make it today and missed it! Will you be bringing it to SkipNorth? I'd love to see it (and maybe try it out if that is alright? it sounds like it has such an interesting mechanism).
~M
What an interesting wheel. The top photo made the junction of the treadle and the wheel look eccentric, but of course it doesn't look like that in the bottom photo. It looks perfectly centered. Did you figure it all out yet?
Thank goodness for Google! I found this/you here.
Just bought a second-hand Ettrick Windwheel after learning to spin on a NZ Ashford upright and the whole action is so different.
Doing my usual action the belt is jumping/slipping.
Going to follow your instructions here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Amazing, twice in one year to see the wind wheel. Last fall at Desert Mesa spinning retreat in Cache Creek, BC was a lady there using one and very successfully I might add.
To start the wheel, press on the back of the tredle to lift the drive wheel free of the belt. It is counterweighted to do a part turn so when you then push down at the front the treddle the wheel will begin to turn in the right direction.
Hi! Sorry to be responding to your 2010 post in 2013; have just seen your link on Google.
We, in Australia, call this spinning wheel a 'wind' wheel - as in 'blowing in the wind'.
You, also, might be interested in the history of this spinning wheel design. They were made, originally in the 1970's, in Tasmania by Geoffrey Fenton, who used beautiful Huon Pine. The business passed next to South Australian, Hans Kruger, who made your Wind Wheel, and nowadays, they are constructed/sold by Ettrick owner, and Victorian, Normal Walters, who uses Tasmania Blackwood and other Australian woods.
Should you like to read more about the history of your beautiful Wind Wheel design, go to this link: .
Very Best,
Fellow handspinner in Australia.
Hello from Albany Western Australia. We have a very active spinning group here and one of the group has a Wind Wheel. Your wheel is exquisite, I have watched the wheel being used here and I will post a photo soon, our wheel has a rubber band not a piece of webbing? On the circular base. It spins beautifully and is fascinating to watch. I have a Nagy wheel from NZ also a lovely wheel Happy spinning. Margaret.
Actually the pronunciation of windwheel is as the wind blows, not as in wind a string into a ball.
I’m struggling to start it and setting the tension. Seems hard to keep it going in the right direction. Only picked it up this afternoon, so early days! It’s a 1986 model. The wheel attached to the treadle is metal
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