Double drive spinning wheel setup

In most common practice, a single drive band long enough to loop around the various mechanical parts twice is the drive transmission device. Think of it doing the same thing that the drive belt on a car motor does. Using the energy source of a leg or two, the drive wheel is made to rotate. The speed of this rotation will impact the driven parts on the mother-of-all. The faster one treadles and the diameter of the drive wheel is one way to control the speed of the driven parts of the spinning wheel, the flyer and bobbin.

The drive band is the intermediate part that transfers power from the drive wheel to the flyer. But what happens at the flyer? How does the rotation of the flyer and bobbin result in the fibers turning into yarn and being drawn onto the bobbin? This gripping is what allows the flyer to be rotated as the drive wheel turns. There should not be any slipping of the band in the whorl groove but tension on the drive band should be no more than needed for the drive wheel to rotate the flyer.

Now look at the groove on the bobbin pulley. Unlike the whorl groove, the shape here on the bobbin pulley is designed to allow a certain amount of slipping of the drive band as it goes around the bobbin. The drive wheel rotation will cause the drive band, if tensioned properly, to travel around the circumference of the wheel;. The moving drive band will cause the flyer mechanism to rotate if properly tensioned;. The drive band interacts with both the whorl and the bobbin pulley independently, causing both to rotate if properly tensioned; these 2 parts can and will rotate independently of one another; different revolutions per minute rpm ;.

When the spinner allows twisted yarn to advance into the orifice a degree of tension is released on the yarn allowing the lock of the bobbin and flyer to break; the bobbin will begin to rotate faster because the bobbin pulley is smaller in diameter and it is at this time that yarn, pulled by the bobbin, comes through the orifice and onto the bobbin.

This all happens rather quickly and is difficult to see, but the continuous process of the above steps will result in yarn being made and loaded onto the bobbin. Tension of the drive band impacts two aspects of spinning. First, the rotation of the flyer; second, the force of the take-up of yarn onto the bobbin.

In trying to adjust one, you also change the other. Proper tension is thus a balance of these two settings. A general rule is this: with the wheel at rest, you want to be able to pull yarn off the bobbin through the orifice without the wheel turning. Your final tension may be more or less, depending on other factors. You will forgive us if we do not provide a strong endorsement one way or the other.

There are advantages for both systems and trade-offs for each. You will find strong advocates for both systems, with some adamant that one is far superior than the other. Take all of this with a smile on your face, because it is not a case of black and white. Can you make the wrong selection? A spinner with developed skills should find it easy to use either type of wheel and produce yarn of similar specifications. Further, most wheels are made one way or the other.

So if you like a particular wheel for reasons other than the drive set-up, you must accept the wheel as it comes. Even double drive wheels that offer the ability to set-up in a single drive mode are always a double drive wheel by design, meaning the parts for a double drive will always be there.