3-D Printed Spindles (Christmas Spindles): The Test Drive

My friend, Petra Cosgrove-Trembly (of Kentswald Shetlands) and I took the time over a recent weekend to test drive the 3-d printed spindles that my husband made for me for Christmas.  The last post on the spindles is here.

We have deiced that for a first run these spindles work rather well.  You can see the video that we made of Petra working with them.  She is spinning from a wool and silk puni that I made with my new blending board.  As you can see in the rather tiny video (I cannot seem to make it larger), the spindle does have a kick when it spins.  This is not a huge problem but it does affect how long you can go without having to add more spin (kick makes spindles slow down).  The reason this spindle is kicking is because the holes in the arms are going the wrong way.  The smallest holes are near the center of the arms and the largest are towards the outside of the arms.  This should be the opposite.  

We also both agreed that the spindles need more weight added to the arms.  So what we really want in the next version is to remove the holes altogether.  Or if there are holes in the arms, they should be very small and only near the shaft.  The majority of the weight needs to be on the outside of the arms.  You can't add any bumps to the design because the arms need to be removable to get the center pull ball that Turkish spindles are known for.  In other words, this spindle needs to disassemble. 

We were also worried that the spindle texture from the 3-d printer (I'd have to ask my husband what plastic was used) would catch the delicate threads.  As you can see we had no trouble removing the arms.  Petra spins pencil-line fine yarns so our worries were unfounded.  Not only that, the texture worked in out favor because the yarn that might normally slip on a highly polished wood shaft during spinning stayed put on this one.

Now before you go and order up a dozen for teaching, you should know, these are really expensive to print.  For now, hand made wood ones are cheaper.  And the plastic is brittle and can break if you drop them.  

Christmas Spindles

It was a small box with a very cool gift in it.  My husband is a mechanical engineer who has a 3-D printer at work.  He used it and a copy of Solidworks, to print me three Turkish style spindles.  The largest is 1.0 oz and 8" long.  The medium spindle is 0.6 oz and 5" long.  The tiny Turkish spindle is 0.4 oz and 3" long.  He has told me that they are brittle and can break if dropped.  If they do break, he says he can just print me a new one or a new part.  He can also remove the wholes in the arms to make them heavier.  I have not tried them but I trust him that they are balanced well.  I think they are all excellent prototypes.  I'd like a little more weight on them but I favor a heavier spindle.  I'd like the shaft of the tiny one to be longer so I can fit more yarn on it.  There is a point were they just get to tiny to use well and I think this might be there.  The two larger ones are fantastic and I would not change a thing.

EDIT (12-27-14): I have found out from my clever husband that all of the shafts fit all of the arms; they are completely interchangeable.  In addition we are going to add a small indent in the top of the shafts for the thread to hold onto.  The surface has texture, so I'm not that worried about slipping threads like I have experienced on highly polished wood surfaces, but we both think I would look nice.  The texture also makes me think this would not be a good spindle for silk or similar fibers.  We might have trouble getting the arms out after we were done.  I will post later of course, once I have had a chance to use them.

I must say, I love my husband because this is an amazing, thoughtful, and wonderful gift.

EDIT (1-28-15): Follow up blog here