sweetgeorgia

Schacht Squak

The new wheel is here and all settled into our living room. See…

So the wheel arrived at my office at 11:45 am on Monday morning and, of course, I opened up the box to check that everything was ok and intact. We brought the wheel home and then I had myself a little adventure trying to get the treadles to snap onto the little front leg bars. It was hard! When the manual says you can do it with “a sharp blow with the heel of your hand or a light tap with a hammer on a piece of wood placed on the treadle over the bearing” — no way. I had to bang those treadles in pretty hard with a hammer. It was traumatizing — getting a brand new shiny wheel and then hammering the beejeezus out of it right away!

The rest of the assembly was fine… I oiled all the bits I was instructed to oil, but I was getting tons of squeaks everywhere… the treadles, the footmen, etc. So I oiled some more… I used up all the sewing machine oil in the house and then started using mineral oil. Both oils were too light, but it’s what I had available at the time. So by the end of Monday night, I just had a squeak on one of the treadles. It sounded like “squeak… squeak… (and then when you stop treadling and let the wheel slow down) … squuuaaaaak”

Luckily, Cal at Shuttleworks read my mind and sent me a bottle of Schacht Spinning Wheel Oil that arrived Tuesday afternoon. It came with a note saying “I thought you might need some oil.” Awesome service, I tell you. So I used the new oil on the wheel last night and, ta da, no more squeaking! It will be 20 or 30 weight motor oil from now on.

I spun on the new wheel for about 2 1/2 hours last night and am making nice fine merino singles… (Yes, this is still that Ashland Bay merino that I bought in May!) The wheel is now running nice and smoothly — it’s so quiet too.

Sure, a Woolee Winder would be very nice for this wheel, but I do like how the flyer hooks are all on one side of the flyer and slightly staggered… This way you can pack more on the bobbin. You could also lace the yarn back and forth to reduce the pull-in if you are spinning laceweight stuff. I still prefer that sliding flyer hook that’s on some wheels (Majacraft, Lendrum) but this will do!

In *grr* news, my dyeable yarn order is lost in the mail.

And in *whoa technology* news, go see June’s entry about Bioclipped fleeces. Crazy.

Restraint. Not one of my strong points.

Well. I’m getting a new wheel.

I called Cal at Shuttleworks yesterday afternoon and placed my order for the Schacht Matchless DT. I am completely without patience and lucky for me, Cal had a brand new box in the shop that he shipped out immediately. So the new wheel will be arriving on Monday before noon!

I can’t wait! But no, I can wait. See? I’m waiting, adult-style.