Friday, August 10, 2007

A Picardy Spinning Wheel Restoration


Fred had to do quite a bit of research to figure out how this variation on the Picardy wheel worked. The recreated knob on top of the left-hand post extends down through a hole in the top cross-piece so that the whorl can be removed if necessary. The flyer separates from the rest of the spindle under the center of the “u” by means of a tapered fit so that the bobbin can be removed.

There are pictures of Picardy wheels with treadles here http://www.spwhsl.com/ISS_37/DETAIL37.HTM and there is a photo of a Picardy wheel in Spinning Wheels and Accessories by Pennington and Taylor on page 12 as well as a sketch of a crank driven Picardy in the Ulster Museum booklet of wheels on page 28.There is quite a bit more information about Picardy wheels in Spinning Wheels, Spinners & Spinning by Patricia Baines.
This flyer probably didn't have hooks and just used a loop of string to slide along the arms of the flyer to space the yarn on the bobbin.

3 Comments:

Blogger cyndy said...

How interesting! Fred did a beautiful job, as always -
love that part about the string taking the place of flyer hooks!

6:43 AM  
Blogger Marcy said...

Fascinating stuff, Grace. I only found out about Picardy wheels a year ago after I posted a Millet painting on Habetrot that showed a hand cranked Picardy wheel. http://habetrot.typepad.com/habetrot/2006/08/millet_spinner.html
Make sure you click on the image for big.

Then I came across pictures of a treadle Picardy that I posted about here: http://habetrot.typepad.com/habetrot/2006/08/update_on_mille.html

I didn't have a name for it until one of the commenters identified it. Clever me. Maybe if I'd looked in any of my books? :D

That's fascinating about the string in lieu of hooks on the flyer. It certainly makes sense in context. Hooks would have been a later refinement.

7:42 AM  
Blogger Lele Desert said...

Hello I am new here and so glad I came across this blog. Fred did such a great job on that wheel. I recently bought a little Picardy style wheel but bobbin and flyer are missing. I would love to connect to Fred to learn more about it. I also tried to open this link http://habetrot.typepad.com/habetrot/2006/08/millet_ But it didn't open as well as this one http://habetrot.typepad.com/habetrot/2006/08/update
Looking forward to reading more.

11:12 AM  

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