Day to day turning

[bodrighywood]

Whilst you lucky ones spend your time making hollow forms and wnderful bowls some of us have to make more mundane items to put a crust on the table LOL. This is a navajo sppindle. Used for spinning yarn or wool and traditionally used siting cross legged on the floor (I am led to believe) It has a 30" sycamore shaft and a 5 1/2" whorl in some type of mahogany.It spins well fortunately, sometime when these are made the darn thing goes a bit off centre and won't spin accurately but got it right this time.

 

Pete

[edbanger]

Good to see the day to day stuff you make Pete it shows off your skills as a woodturner.

Ed

[Bryan Milham]

Pete,

a 30" spindle that thin is quite an achievement, well done. A great looking spinning spindle.

I'm a little confused by your concern over the comment

It spins well fortunately, sometime when these are made the darn thing goes a bit off centre and won't spin accurately

I'm quite sure that the Navajo never had lathes and actually made the spindle by hand, so can never have been as straight as we can make them now. The Navajo managed to work with them for hundreds (possibly thousands of years without a problem.

[bodrighywood]

Pete,

a 30" spindle that thin is quite an achievement, well done. A great looking spinning spindle.

I'm a little confused by your concern over the comment

It spins well fortunately, sometime when these are made the darn thing goes a bit off centre and won't spin accurately

I'm quite sure that the Navajo never had lathes and actually made the spindle by hand, so can never have been as straight as we can make them now. The Navajo managed to work with them for hundreds (possibly thousands of years without a problem.

If I was making them for traditionalists maybe not Brian but sadly modern spinners like their spindles to be exact. I had one, a takhili, (lightweight spindle used in a bowl) sent back because they wanted it to weigh 25grm and it was 22. I made another and sold the other one to someone who was a bit less particular. When I researched spindles I realised, as you say, that the originals were far less accurate, often using stones, lumps of clay, shells and bits of wood roughly carved etc as whorls and worked fine. Modern life huh?

Pete