Featured Spinning wheel parts?

I have a box of parts I've been repairing and assembling that are from an old spinning wheel. I have a few extra pieces I'm not sure belong with the wheel but I know nothing about spinning so wonder if anyone knows if they are associated or not.

There is a wooden handle item with a forged iron pick and two 2-handled items with curved wood dowel.

 

cool....

 

That's a nice flax wheel you have there. My wife is heavily into spinning and she would know what those pieces are except she won't be home until 5 tonight. I'll get back to you then if nobody else chimes in.
I don't know what the hook is for but I notice your wheel looks like Mahogany finish and the 2 other pieces are an oak color - they might not go with it.

 

A Ha !!!

The one on top is a ...Doffer pin !!

Everyone who uses a drum carder needs a doffer pin. A doffer pin is used to separate the batt and peel it off the large drum.

 

I'll be darn, my wife just uses an ice pick but her carder drums are only 3 1/2" wide.

 

Google tells me...

"The type of wheel you get really depends on the type of spinning you want to do, and, if by flax wheel, you mean a great wheel, the amount of space you have for one. A general purpose spinning wheel is generally going to cover the gauntlet of fibers you are going to want to spin - as in wool, alpaca, silk, bamboo, angora, mohair, etc.. A flax wheel will have a distaff to hold the flax and a smaller orifice (where the yarn goes in as you're spinning) than a regular wool wheel, this is not to say that you can't spin flax on a wool wheel, or vice versa, because it can be done. Depending on the individual wheel, flax wheels can also have a flyer set up, but the ratios are generally different than with a wool wheel. One other thing to consider with the wheels, if it's a great wheel, you aren't talking about a flyer and bobbin type setup you are talking about a setup that more resembles a drop spindle set on its side. Given a choice, I definitely would go for the regular wool spinning wheel."

I like the bird cage part!



http://www.knittingparadise.com/t-12636-1.html

 

I'd seen that photo as I was trying to figure out where the pieces were supposed to go. It was a crazy jig saw
Mine doesn't have the birdcage bit but there is a spool that seems to fit that spot so I stuck it there.

The "doffer pin" fits perfectly in the remaining hole if I put it point up (not how I'd probably position it myself )

It's an interesting old one, at least interesting to me, and it's been sitting in a box in the garage for too long. It had some broken pieces where wood worm had destroyed the wood so after I treated those I made some peg legs so it can finally stand up. I think it'll be off to the flea market one of these days. I've got to get rid of some stuff.

 

Aha!

 

These are the "great wheels" - popular in the 1800's.



Yours is called a flax wheel because of the distaff (which is really supposed to look like a birdcage) that holds the bundle of flax so you just pull some off of it and start spinning. I was under the impression flax fibre was oily and dirty and you would also have a little holder with water in it to moisten your fingers so the fiber will slide through them easier.
The bobbin (spool) you have ontop of the distaff holder probably doesn't go there. It looks to me like it is just a higher capacity bobbin for spinning a larger quantity of fiber.
My wife has never used her distaff appendage and has just taken the whole thing off her wheel as flax spinning now a days is pretty much extinct with all the new kinds of spinning fibers out there.

This is my wife's antique CREEN flax wheel after I repaired it that she spins all kind of different fibers on. It is a double drive as you can see the drive band is doubled. The hole on the upper left in the table is where the flax appendage went.

 

Thanks, Rayo!
What does she make, ultimately... garments?

 

You name it - knits and sews stuffed toys, baby clothes, scarves, sweaters, hats, shawls, hand bags, full gloves and finger-less gloves, plus she has 4 looms that she weaves all kinds of materials and sews the woven cloth into all kinds of items - keeps her busy for sure.

 

Coool! I've never been tempted to spin but I used to have a goat that I sheared and gave her fleece to a spinner. Closest I ever got

 

She'll take a complete raw fleece from a sheep or Alpaca and wash, prepare, card, dye it, spin into yarn, then start knitting.

Here's the whole raw fleece then a finished shawl she recently knitted from it after all the preperation:

 

A goat? Don't they have short bristly little hairs?

 

She was half angora so she looked like a white wooly sheep and was soft and fluffy.

 

She must have been a Kashmir goat then - soft hair! They arent too common.
Must be a dual purpose animal with milk and fiber. Nice animal to have!!

 

I LOVE all that stuff, Rayo.
Does she ever sell stuff????

 

She was half pygmy and half angora. We got her from a petting zoo when she was a wee thing. They only wanted purebred goats there but they'd had a little romance mis-hap ending up with Spritzie.

I pulled out this photo of her but she her hair wasn't as long as it would get in this photo. The little pony was her best bud and at times she'd hop up and stand on the pony's back. It was like a circus. In pulling the photo out I also found a picture of my dad as a baby in a goat cart with his sister. Have a look at those horns!

 

Say_it_slowly, the photo of your dad and his sister in the goat cart is wonderful.

 

LOVE alllll these!!!!!!!!!!!!!!