The Finnish spinning wheel arrived by Fedex on Friday, and we unpacked it to great interest from the dogs. I spent some time cleaning it as it had been in a house with two smokers for a very long time and needed something to smell less smoky.
Then Noel took apart the flyer that was broken and cleaned it out, and put it back together with glue and a couple of wooden pins (sometimes known as toothpicks).
Once the pins were trimmed down, the flyer was as solid as it could be. We had a few more things to fuss with to get the bobbin to spin smoothly, but soon enough I put a drive band on the wheel and spun up some Dorset wool I had left over from a class. One of the hooks broke off; they're all kind of right on the edge of breaking in half so it might be time to just replace them all. But the thing works. See:
We figure that's the first wool spun on this wheel in 50 years.
In short: this wheel wants to go fast. It does not like being treadled slowly and handled cautiously. It likes to be on its fastest ratio and treadled like a bandit. Also, it eats fiber for lunch. Not a beginner wheel. But it's going to be a lot of fun.
OK, I'm hugely impressed! That's so darn cool! How are you going to replace the hooks? Can I come try it some day?
Not sure how we'll replace the hooks; a lot depends on how they are attached. But I'm thinking some brass cup hooks (the small size) would work just fine, as long as we replaced all of them at once.