| Recently, Allen Fannin sold me a few industrial tension
devices, originally intended for tension control on a creel (for which
they would still be useful) that can be seen on the close-up picture. This
delightfully simple product of Yankee mechanical ingenuity, is similar
to the tension device on old sewing machines with the tension spring replaced
by the weight of the washers that can be seen on the top of each of the
three tension disks. In addition, the last of the three tension disks (leftmost
in the picture) is supported on an arm that can be moved over over a close
to ninety degree angle (held by detents) that give a further fine tuning
tension adjustment.The overview depicts the entire setup. The pirn
(or spool or bobbin) sits on a very old, barely functional, inverted 3/8"
hand drill held by a table top 3/8" 'drill press' holder from Home Depot.
This was the most expensive item in the whole rig, costing around $20.00.
The pirn/bobbin/spool is held by a piece of dowel, tapered by the application
of a file while it was rotating. Seen hanging from the yarn is a screw
eye attached with tape to a length of rod, that is used to guide the yarn
onto the pern/bobbin. The tension device itself is supported by a 3/4"
aluminum tube (around $3.00 at your local hardware store) supported on
the base of a now defunct floor lamp. (Run some thread-all through
the base and epoxy the tube to it.)
Allen sold me the tension device for $10.00. He has informed me that he has a few more lying around if anyone should want one. Allen Fannin <aafannin@mailbox.syr.edu> This setup works like a charm. We have wound heavy wool onto pirns and 20/2 cotton onto bobbins and in both cases the results were far better than without the tension device and allows much faster winding speeds than freehand permitted. (I have never would prettier pirns, but then again I am a novice pirn winder.) Although we have not used it in this way yet, we think it will also work very well with a sectional warping creel and the AVL reel. It also looks promising for putting extra tension on floating selvages as well as a straying warp thread and when used between a swift and a ball winder. |
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