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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

My PVC Spinning Wheel

do you see the glow?
My hubby made it for me yesterday. Ain't he a sweetie? We used DragonsKeep's instructions. A dead link Its a bit smaller than donisfuff's stuff  but we needed to modify the instrux a bit. The most important change was the 5" lengths of pvc pipe, which are the cross bars on the bottom, and they turned out to be too long. Doni had these at 4" and that seems to be a better size. 5 inches makes the base too wide for that long bike wheel bolt thingy. That would mean the wheel sitting on air.

Hubby thought putting crossbars at this point (a change in pattern ) might be a good idea. I concurred. Of course we had not thought to check the bolt length before doing any of this. It turned out not to be a big problem. He just squeezed a bit as he went to the next level. But anyway that brought the T joint count from 12 to 16. We also cut about 4" from the top level because of adding those extra T joints. Course this was after the fact. You could instead take the extra 4" from the bottom level and make both levels look more balanced. Or something.
And with lots of little kiddies running around at our house I wanted something to stabilize the wheel. That piece of wood in the background of above picture got the vote.

the double dagger
 
Seriously though, I had a size 11 knitting needle for the spindle but could not, for the life of me, figure out which side I would be working on. I am a bit ambidextrous. Add in the fact of never sitting before a spinning wheel, and well, the confusion sets in. Husband Dear then says, "Let me grind both sides of this metal rod for you."

I'm like, "Uhhhhmm. Okay...."

this works as the break
 
a piece of pipe and two rubber bands
the little gremlins just wanna have fun...with my wheel.
Can't have that...

5 comments:

  1. WOW !!! That is so freaking COOL ! I love a creative mind ..... Thank's Pam for sharing your knowledge. Looking forward to checking out more of your ideas.

    Vickey

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  2. Any chance that you have the Dragon'sKeep instructions somewhere other than via the pjsadventure.com site which is unavailable?
    ftblady (at) yahoo.com if possible
    Thanks, NormaLee Ft Bragg

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  3. Hi Norma Lee! I sent you an email. Sorry about not getting back with you sooner. Yahoo is getting so picky that I hate to check my mail! Thanks for stopping in!!

    Pam

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  4. Incredible job! Would be forever grateful for dragonkeep's instructions as well. Thank you in advance. danandjeanflores at aol dot com

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  5. Hey anonoymous thanks! Guys I'm so sorry about Dragonkeep splitting. But for real Donis's spinning wheel's instructions are very good! Just 7 bucks! :) Worth every penny...!! And guess what? There is a new bike wheel inventor on the block.

    https://www.etsy.com/listing/198762832/thrifty-fox-spinning-wheel-digital-pdf

    Her videos a hoot. Go check her wheel out!

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