Sunday, March 16, 2014

Make your own Modular drop spindles ?

Recently I have been researching the idea of a drop spindle that could hold a mini plastic weaving bobbin. These weaving bobbins weigh almost nothing, cost very little and you could just put a new one on when your spindle was full. I am not sure if the bobbin would disrupt the spinning of the spindle. I found some similar ideas out there. One is the idea of a modular spindle by KCL woods. You simply remove the shafts. Actually not a bad solution but still kind of expensive
Another is by a person in the UK. The web site is http://www.almostalien.com . The modular spindles there actually use a bobbin. Yeah! Unfortunately they are also expensive.

I like the bobbin idea because I could use my current lazy Kate to ply with.... As a type of test I might try getting a piece of rubber tubbing to use to hold a plastic bobbin in place on one of my current drop spindles to see if it will still work as a spindle with the bobbin on.
Here is my first try. This is using latex tubing It spins ok. I like it better on a spindle with a notch in the end

Here is another try using o rings. These are the very small ones. I find I like it best with two prints one on the top and one on the bottom. Then I use the one on the top and kind of push the bobbin over it. This will help to make it so the bobbin does not rotate.


Wedged..
Not wedged

The o rings are easier to get on and off the spindle when compared to the latex tubing