Along with the Shetland fleece I posted about the other day, a skein winder and a spinning wheel arrived at the house.  Both were in dire need of some attention.  Based on what I was told, the skein winder may be turn of the century.  I suspect it was made in someone’s garage or barn from found wood as it’s a mix of several different species but it’s well made and the mortise and tenons are well executed either way.

It does have a maker’s mark but it was barely visible when the winder arrived.   Click on the pic to see the full reason why.  Yes, it was that grungy. 

After more than an hour with Murphy’s Oil soap and steel wool, I went the nuclear option for cleaning.  You can see the progress I made with the Murphy’s Oil soap and steel wool above on the left side where the cleaner area is but I just couldn’t see putting in hours and hours of scrubbing for possibly no return on my time.  I resolved to use this as a template and build another because there’s no way I’d put yarn on this as it sat.   Regardless, I had to get it passably clean in order to keep it in the house and if I blew it up in the process, I could still use the pieces to pattern another. So, with nothing to lose, I …

(*note* I do NOT recommend this method with anything you want to keep.  It has an extremely high likelihood of destroying the item you’re wanting to clean. <-I’d make that flash if I could.)

… pressure washed it.  Yes, I did.

I tried with the hose first and it barely shifted anything. The fir pieces didn’t much enjoy the pressure washing as fir likes to tear out if you glance at it but for the most part, the skein winder cleaned up well and after about 2 days drying (with the help of a fan and a hair dryer off and on) , it was furry fir and not just completely covered in grime.  I saw the maker’s mark for the first time.

After it was fully dry, Ryan sanded it back to smooth for me.  Some of that was with a palm sander but lots was by hand.  Once it was smooth enough to put yarn on, it got a coat of Howard’s Feed’N’Wax and came inside.

Here’s the before and after. 

It’s not new by any stretch and it’s certainly rustic but I love the primitive build and it works just fine to make a 52″ skein.

If/When parts fail on it, I will remake/repair/replace them as needed. That rear upright could use a gluing and I’ll likely do that before too long now that everything is settling down and Fall and the coming winter is putting an end to our Summer activities.

The wheel that arrived was a Quebec Wheel or a Canadian Production Wheel.  I’ve talked about these before.  This one, I think was made by Theodore Bordua and somewhere between 1920 and the early 1950s.  I suspect on the earlier end because the wheel appears to have been shellacked. Interestingly enough, it initially passed the shellac test – maybe because it was chilly that day or there was just that much of a grime helmet on top of the shellac – so imagine my shock and horror when I felt the finish melting under my wet cloth as I scrubbed! Luckily, I’ve danced with shellac before.

Here’s the wheel cleaned up.  All told, including turning a peg for the drive wheel, I put 6 hours into almost exclusively cleaning.  In fact, when it first arrived, I briefly thought it had been fire adjacent.  It was that black in spots. It turned out it was all from over-oiling and the inevitable grime that sticks to wet oil.

In the pictures that follow, the before is on the left, after on the right.

After all this work, I gave the wheel a good coat of boiled linseed oil to feed the remaining shellac.  It will likely get one more coat and a waxing before winter hits but in the meantime, it’s back to spinning happily, quietly and fast – as a CPW should.  🙂

 

Finally, as promised: Here’s a photo of the current progress of the Accidentally Epic shawl project I’m working on.  (Queen Of Heaven Shawl pattern by Leo A Pola) This week, I’ll have to make a decision.  1,2 or 3 repeats of the chart I’m in the middle of.  If 1 repeat, I’m 21 rows from finished.  If 3, I have 47 rows left.  That decision will inform how much more yarn I have to spin.  Or perhaps, how much fibre I have prepared to make yarn from will inform the decision of how many repeats I do.  Either way, at 2 rows a day everyday or 3 rows a day 6 days a week, this is a possible finish for the end of the year.

This will likely be the last progress shot of it here or on Instagram because it’s now too big to spread out anywhere other than the floor.  This was a featherweight table and the widest surface I can see being able to do it on and light adequately to see/photograph the lace.

 

Today’s post title: Wheel in the Sky – Journey