Thursday, September 30, 2010

CROOKED CONE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

Cone crooked wound

Well, it’s not the cone that is crooked;  it’s the winding. 

When I got to this point, I could no longer turn the handle.  Something was jammed.  I am not a mechanic.  Still, I took the cone off the winder, turned the winder upside down in my hand.  I looked through the tiny opening and it seemed to unmechanical Peg that there were bits of threads caught in the gear mechanism.  What to do?

Could I take it apart to get at the gears?  I saw 4 screws on the bottom. I removed them and proceeded to pull the bottom of the winder away from the top.  But it wouldn’t come apart.  Was there something else I could do? 

I’d had this (relatively) inexpensive winder for close to 10 years.  I knew I wouldn’t feel badly about buying a new one.  But I was still determined to try to get it back into working order.

I could not find another way to separate them into the two pieces.  But, there was enough of an opening that I could clearly see the threads caught in the gears, but not enough of an opening for even one finger to slip through.

I tried a long beading tweezers, but even that was too wide.  So I took a crochet hook and poked around until a thread came to where I could grab it either with my fingers or tweezers.  Then I pulled it out of the gear.  I did this any number of times, pulling out not only threads but bits of dust ball sort of things.  Finally, the gear mechanism seemed to be clean of any garbage.

I put a fresh cone on, attached the thread, took the handle in my fingers and turned.  It turned freely.  It wound out correctly.  I am so proud of myself!

Crooked Cone” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 30, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

3 comments:

Delighted Hands said...

I love it when I can solve a problem like this! Too many require additional assistance and really put a halt to the process at hand; glad this has a happy ending!

DEEP END OF THE LOOM said...

Don't you just love it when you can figure something out and get it back to work. I alway pat myself on the back when I accomplish things like that.

Peg in South Carolina said...

Yes, I love it too, especially since I am so unmechanical! And I definitely do give myself a pat on the back.........and brag a bit to dh....