A Weighty Matter

Here is a Hamilton wheel. But it’s not quite like any others we’ve seen – can you spot the differences?

Photo credit: Andrew Currie

Sadly, the tip of the front maiden is broken off: only cosmetic, unless some spinner ever wants to add a bar across the maidens to secure one end of a scotch tension brake.

Second, it has twelve spokes. The norm for these is fourteen. But wheel-makers do make changes to their designs as time goes by. I’d guess this is a late development, since it’s two fewer spokes to make and twelve would be easier to space around the wheel than fourteen (though precise spacing doesn’t seem to have been a major concern for the Hamilton maker).

Third, what are those two bumps on the inner edge of the wheel rim? A closer look:

Photo credit: Andrew Currie

Someone has added pyramid sinkers, used (normally) for fishing.

When tied or slid onto a fishing line, pointy end down, they hold the bait in place on sandy or muddy bottoms or for surf fishing.

These two weights have been shortened a little at the pointy end – perhaps so they didn’t add quite so much weight – and are fastened to the wheel with nails. Hammering in nails there could be a perilous business. Probably the drive wheel was removed (easy to do with Hamiltons) and the rim rested securely on something.

So what are fishing weights doing on a spinning wheel? They are adding extra weight to to make it stop in the starting position ready for the next treadle, and to help the spinner get “over the hump” when the treadle is rising and the drive wheel is losing momentum. As beginner spinners I’m sure we all battled with that – the wheel slowing and running backwards before it’s time to press down again on the treadle.

These “balance weights” have to be precisely placed –

Photo credit: Andrew Currie

Here the treadle is at its lowest point, and the weights would be in just the right position to counter the weight of the treadle and make sure the wheel has enough speed left to keep going all the way round. They should also make the wheel stop with the treadle in the right position for starting again, without the spinner having to use their hand, though that hasn’t happened here.

(An aside – I’ve never understood why some expert spinners consider it so naughty to start your wheel with a little push of the hand on a spoke.)

A number of makers have used balance weights. Back in the 1930s Harold Martin had the foundry that was making his iron drive wheels add a considerable bulge so the treadle is ready to start the downstroke.

And here is my Fleur –

You can see that the thinly disguised weights have brought the treadle to a good starting position for spinning. How does this affect plying, which is in the other direction, we wonder? There is no problem with the Fleur, because it has a heel-toe treadle, which overhangs so I can push down with my heel for the upstroke.

These particular weights have another purpose too. Three more add weight around the rest of the circumference of the drive wheel. They are there to increase the inertia of the wheel so it keeps going for longer once it starts rotating. Such extra weight is particularly useful when the drive wheel is very small. Does any reader happen to know whether Beulah wheels like the one below have weights under those neatly spaced lumps of wood? And if so, whether they are the same all around or are they altering the balance of the wheel? This one has certainly stopped at the ideal starting point.Philip Poore used balance weights in his Pipy and Wendy wheels. Shan Wong who has a Pipy saxony tells me that she does have to give the drive wheel a tiny flick with her hand to start plying anticlockwise, or sometimes she does it by starting clockwise and then quickly reversing. Once started she notices no difference in ease of spinning between the two directions. Pipy wheels don’t have a heel-toe treadle; it wouldn’t work anyway, because the footman is a piece of string so pushing it upwards wouldn’t do anything to the drive wheel. However, Poore’s Wendy upright has a rigid wooden footman and a heel-toe treadle so starting anticlockwise with one’s heel should be possible.

Photo credit: Georgene Wray

Here the weights are at the bottom and the crank is is just the right position to start the wheel turning clockwise when the treadle is pressed. Pressing first with the heel should start it anti-clockwise.

Balance weights are very much disapproved of by some expert makers. Eric Corran writes
“… weights are inserted into one segment of the rim to offset the weight of the treadle, by always bringing the crank web to rest in the two-o’clock position. This enables the spinner to start treadling without touching the driving wheel.

“Although this at first appears to be a convenient operational feature, unbalancing anything that revolves, especially a driving (fly) wheel, is not good engineering practice. It can result in very uneven running at quite moderate speeds. The weights in one segment of the driving wheel counterbalance the weight of the treadle only when the system is at rest. Because of the increasing centrifugal force, the imbalance of the wheel becomes worse as the treadling speed increases.” (Understanding the Spinning Wheel p.78)

Mike Keeves calls them “unbalance weights”. You will never find them in a Grace wheel.

I have only once felt a real need of more weight in a drive wheel. It was an A-line by Easycraft, like this one –

The drive wheel was so light that the weight of the footman and treadle made it quite difficult to keep it spinning, and a new spinner would find it most discouraging. So before letting it go on sale by our guild, I made a weighted strip of fabric which could be wound around a spoke and secured with velcro. It didn’t look elegant but it really helped, and it could be moved to the opposite spoke for plying. Someone tried it and (unfortunately before I got around to taking a photo) went off happily with it under her arm.

I thank Andrew Currie for telling me about his interesting Hamilton wheel and for his photos, and Shan Wong for helpful spinning wheel conversations.