Hi all, Just wanted to follow-up on a few topics and report the outcome of the advice I got here:
1) I asked about making the orifice of my wheel smaller. I went to the hardware store (with 2 flyers in hand) and putzed around with a salesman until we found something that would be pressure fit into the existing orifice and therefore could be removed easily when I didn't want a small orifice. For 1 flyer, we ended up nesting 2 pieces of plastic called "bushings." Each bushing is like a small hollow tube with a washer-like disk on top (has a T-shaped profile). We had to nest 1 inside another to get the orifice small enough. I glued the bushings together with superglue. The other flyer had a slightly larger diameter orifice, and we found a rubber bushing (w/metal threads inside the last few mm of the stem) that would fit snugly. I may trim off the part with the threads, but I'm not sure if that will affect the yarn or the fit. 2) I asked about lubricants. I found something called silicone grease in the plumbing section of the hardware store. It is recommended over petroleum products (such as Vaseline) because it will not harm rubber or plastics. (Petroleum causes rubber and plastics to disintegrate over time.) For all intents and purposes, it looks and feels like very thick white Vaseline. It is waterproof and sort of gummy/sticky feeling. I thought that might be good to use where the flyer fits into the plastic parts of the maiden. I could not find SuperLube brand lubricant anywhere. However, after I read that the RadioShack needle-applicator lubricant also contains Teflon, I got that instead. I applied tiny drops to the flyer-maiden joints and to both ends of the footman. (I found out today that the rod bearings on the footman ends are Teflon lined, but I think that they are still a little stiff. The wheelwright agreed that it takes some time for the bearings to "break-in" and get very smooth.) The wheel spins much better now! It's like a new wheel. I haven't tried the silicone grease yet b/c the Teflon stuff seems to work very efficiently. I'll be curious to see how long it lasts before the wheel stiffens up again. I can already see a tiny line of black sludge after 30 min of spinning. Thanks again for everyone's input! June -- Twosheep Blog: http://www.twosheep.com/blog Twosheep Handspun Yarn: http://www.twosheep.com/yarn To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
