Tuesday, September 16, 2014

The big blue book

Having published my notes on  intentional spinning, it is only fair that I publish my notes on Alden Amos's Big Book of Hand Spinning.

pg 15  Good!
pg 19   Twisty sticks were a standard tool of wool sorters and wool buyers for at least a thousand years.

pg 42 Diz also controls rachet.The process is critical to the structure of the yarn.  This needs to be considered as commercial slivers of top are used.  It is often worth washing, combing, and dizing, commercial top to get a desired rachet

pg 44  For objects requiring high collapse rates, the wool can be scoured, and reoiled. This gives a more uniform collapse, and a much more durable object.  Lanolin can be recycled. Since the modern Welch blankets are patterned we can assume that the yarns were (sometimes) dyed and thus scoured.

pg47 Good!!  I have gone around the block on wool washes, and am back to soap with soft water.  Alden's advice on cleaning fleece is still among the best.

pg 73  AA should have included mechanical details of DRS.

pg 123 AA should have included spinning techniques for DRS systems.  They are different.

pg 131 GOOD!  Grist is dependent on yarn tension.

pg 185 There are pix of accelerator wheels  but no discussion of their virtues and vices. Virtues include less slippage. Their great vice is that the drive bands are a problematic.  Everything is going faster, so a thrown drive band can catch and break a flyer arm. Everything is going faster, so oil is essential and thrown oil a problem.  In high speed worsted spinning, a resonance can set up at the drafting triangle resulting alternate over spin and under spin.  The solution is a softer fiber prep to isolate twist propagation.  comb and diz.  On the other hand, such singles look like "hand spun".

pg 190: Double treadle systems will transfer more energy to the flyer/bobbin assembly. A double treadle system will put less stress on the wheel for the same energy transfer.  Double treadle systems will have less slippage.  Fine spinning requires huge amounts of twist.  The only way you are going to get there is high speed, and that implies big ratios - hence double treadles.

pg 210 The the flyer/bobbin assembly derived from the 11th century miniaturization of a large device used to wind thrown silk near Florence, Italy.

pg 210 Leo was looking at winders for the silk throwing industry.  Here Alden misses the point that Leo is working for the ruler of a city where there were 400,000 textile workers in fierce competition with the 400,000 textile workers in the adjacent city. Leo worked as military engineer, and would have been making rope from hemp for military use. Leo also did  work for families that provided banking, insurance, and factor services to the textile industries in Italy, France, and Flanders.

pg 210 A DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly can produce twice as much woolen yarn per day as a great wheel, and 4 times as much worsted yarn per day as a drop spindle. A DRS controlled flyer/bobbin assembly can produce more consistent yarn than either a great wheel or a drop spindle. This had value for spinners producing yarn for weavers. Weavers do not pay for singles that are too heavy or too light.

About that time, such singles were also plied up as hosiery yarns.  It is a very useful grist to be able to spin quickly and reliably.

pg 211 DRS controlled flyer bobbin system can have slack between the drafting triangle and orifice.  In commercial use, such systems are used for winding rovings and slivers that would stretch under tension.

pg 240 AA should have noted that a DRS system can easily produce at twice that rate.

pg 94/383 Factors should be discussed in more detail including effect of fiber.

pg 385 Factors should be given for better grist to WPI conversion.  I have gone back and forth on whether this is an omission or simply a matter of style.

pg 378 Bobbin capacity is highly dependent on tension and how rapidly the yarn is advanced across the face of the bobbin. Yarn construction also affects capacity, eg, less woolen than worsted.

Over all, Alden's sins are those of omission, and I cannot fault him for taking the space to explain things more clearly rather than going into DRS where the market had already told him that it was not interested.

I find it amusing that Interweave fact checked AA, but let JM's errors in heat physics slip through.

I use flyers made by Alden Amos, but I modified both the bobbin whorl and the flyer whorls.





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