If anyone can date this wheel, I would really appreciate it!! I would love to know how old this baby is.
This post is for anyone out there with an "older" Louet S10 single treadle wheel. I wanted to update mine with all the newer parts out there, but I could find no pictures of how to do this with my dinosaur of a wheel. So...here we go This is what my wheel looked like before I started. Big bulky washers holding the wheel to the back post. I also had to make a spacer for the footman to wheel connection because it wouldn't clear the center bolt on the wheel. Look here:
With some AWESOME help and mad dash emails from Adrian Bizilia at Hello Yarn, I got the main bolt assembly in correctly to take advantage of the bearings in the back post that were covered up by bigasshonkin washers. So now the wheel spins effortlessly. Next comes the footman bearing... booger that it was!!! This is the part you get:
This is how it's supposed to go in. Flat bearing is on the front of the wheel with a white spacer between the bearing and the wheel, then a washer and nut on the back. This presented a problem for me because, as you can see I have this footman with a huge hole in it!! I explained to Adrian, that is a non-issue, I can either plug that hole with a dowl and sand flush, or I can just make a new footman. I opted for the second option and carefully traced my footman on a piece of stock oak we had in the woodshop. I used the belt sander to shape it to the same size as my old footman, but with no huge gaping hole!! Presto change-o: My new footman!!
Now (whew!) That's all done. Now there is one more part I 'm waiting on. It's the footman connector. It's the little cup part that snaps on to that bearing and then I have to drill a teeny tiny hole in my footman to connect it to the little cup and I have updated my dinosaur into the year 2009!!! Yippee!! Then I can start spinning some of that alpaca and llama....
wait.. maybe I need to talk to Adrian about a carder...
let's see what my next check looks like and go from there!!
3 comments:
If you REALLY want to update your Louet, get a WooLee Winder for it. I bought mine (used) with one on it -- a total surprise as it didn't show up in the photo -- and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. It's the best wheel accessory EVER.
I was wondering what kind of wood you used to make the new footman. I just bought an s10 that has to be the same age as yours. It has the huge washers and the old footman and all! I was also wondering if you changed out to the new wheel assembly (it sounded like you did) or if you just changed the assembly. Thanks!
Did you ever figure out how old your wheel is? I just bought a used one today to use as a teaching wheel, and it doesn't look like the ones I'm seeing online. Even the bobbins are different, and it's a darker color like yours.
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