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The Turning Wheel
Part 2: The Pendulum Swings
Peter Teal, Online Guild
Part one of this article was published in The
Journal 228. Peter wrote about how the charkha
and the Great Wheel were likely to have
developed from the spindle. He also described
how he made a working model of Hargreaves’
Spinning Jenny and how other types of spinning
machines, including the mule, were developed
during the industrial revolution.
You might think that ring spinning, would
be the end of the story – but it wasn’t,
quite. For now the story shifts to the
cottage industry on the other side of the
Atlantic where the early settlers discovered
they had to use their own spinning and
weaving skills, for the cost of shipping
materials from Europe was prohibitive.
I was surprised to discover patent
applications and patents granted for hand
spinning wheel inventions well into the
late nineteenth century. The designs were
many and varied – and mostly based on
the traditional Great Wheel principle.
Hiram Wheeler of Springville
Township, Susquehanna County,
Pennsylvania patented a moving spindle
machine in 1838. It was so similar to the
principles embodied in Crompton’s Mule
that one supposes he must have been
aware of Crompton’s work. It was however
essentially a cottage industry machine –
whereas in England the Mule went straight
into the emerging factory system.
Wheeler’s machine had a horizontal bed
of between nine and twelve feet long upon
which a single spindle, mounted on a
carriage (trolley), powered by a hand
turned crank and propelled by a foot
treadle, travelled back and forth, to and
from the spinner as she drafted the fibre.
The spinner sat to operate the machine
and, although the productivity of the
machine must have been very similar to
that of a Great Wheel, because the spinner
was sitting, it was far less fatiguing and (in
theory at least) she could keep going
longer.
Did it work? Well yes, I think it probably
did, for I was introduced to Lois Schuck of
Clinton, Missouri who owned one. Lois
sent me drawings and photographs of her
machine, and I was able to make a copy of
it (see top right). In use I found that
perhaps the main feature of the design was
that it enabled one to repeat the length of
draw very accurately and, if one kept count
of the wheel revolutions, the amount of
twist inserted at each draw could be very
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precise. Quite apart from that, though, the
sight of the carriage (see below) trundling
back and forth along the track is quite
irresistible, and one can imagine that,
while the spinner was kept busy, there
must have been many man hours lost by
her men folk enjoying the spectacle!
Other developments involved machines
constructed along the cantilever or
accordion idea, but I’m tempted to think
they couldn’t have been very effective
Above: General view of a
Trolley Wheel. This one has
a bed 9 feet long
because of the huge number of working
parts and the amount of friction they
probably caused... and so we come to the
last of the machines developed from the
Great Wheel – and probably the most
unlikely of them all!
In 1803 an attempt was made by Amos
Miner to improve the productivity of the
Great Wheel by fitting a device that
increased the overall wheel to spindle
whorl ratio. It was an ‘add on’ and was so
popular that many thousands were sold in
Canada and the USA (see above right).
However, I think the prize for ingenuity
has to go to Lyman Wight of Benton,
Pennsylvania, who in 1856 took out a
patent for what came to be known as the
Pendulum Wheel. He had obviously seen
the advantage of enabling the spinner to sit
while spinning and, for reasons about
which we can only speculate, opted for
redesigning the machine rather than
further developments along the Mule or
Trolley Wheel route.
While retaining the original feature of
driving the device by rotating a drive
Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers 229, Spring 2009
Below left: A close up of the trolley
and accelerating head
Below: A modern version of a
Miner’s Head
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wheel of large diameter (a Great Wheel in
fact), he placed the spindle on the end of a
swinging arm (a pendulum) which he
caused to oscillate by the spinner pressing
down with her foot on a treadle which
took the spindle away from her, while a
counterbalance caused it to return. To
make the machine have a worthwhile
draw, he extended the frame upwards,
placing the pivot for the pendulum arm as
high as was practical to make the
pendulum arm, and therefore the draw or
drafting zone, as long as possible.
There were two basic designs. One came
to be known as a Fence Rail design, where
the pivot was at the top of what looked like
part of a fence post (see right). Soon after
he had acquired the manufacturing rights
of Wight’s design, Justin Wait introduced a
new design which came to be known as the
X frame design, where the upper left hand
arm of an X was extended to house the
pivot as high above the ground as possible
(below right). There is no denying that
these were big machines, larger than
would fit comfortably into an average
cottage parlour – so I term them Veranda
Machines, for that is the sort of space they
would seem to require. Even so, many
thousands were made and a goodly
number have survived – so I set about
trying to track one down and struck gold
almost at once!
My first try was with Lois Schuck, the
lady who provided me with details of the
Trolley Wheel and, sure enough, she had
one in her collection of spinning wheels –
and in no time flat I had received a folder
containing a line drawing and a lot of
historical data, amongst which was a very
detailed article by Patricia and Victor
Hilts. Patricia had illustrated their work
with a series of beautiful drawings
detailing the operation of a Pendulum
wheel – and she very kindly gave me
permission to use them so that in
conjunction with the line drawings (right)
provided by Florence Feldman-Wood you
could have a better idea of how the device
works (see line drawings of wheel in use
p. 12). Then, as so often happens in
research work, right out of the blue, Katie
Farr in Oregon, who is a member of the
Online Guild, sent us illustrations of a
Pendulum wheel she had recently acquired
– and my cup was full for, from these four
delightful ladies, I was able to obtain all the
Above: Lyman Wight’s ‘Fence Rail’ design
patented in 1856
Below: The later X frame design
introduced by Justin Wait
M
P
N
H
D
B
O H
K
J
F
C
A
E
A Wheel
B Main Standard
C Short Standard
D Extension arm
E Foot board
F Horizontal bearer
G Spindle
H Axle
J,K,L Clamping screws
M Balance weight
N Lever connected to foot board
O Main pulley shaft
P Spring
Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers 229, Spring 2009
L
G
H
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information I needed to make my wife
Jaquie a Pendulum wheel of her own!
The main priority was that it had to fit
in the house! The drive wheel on the
originals varied between 37 and 50 inches
diameter, but for convenience of spinning
calculations, I made mine 1 metre. Making
the long, extended arm of the X frame was
difficult because the longest piece I could
turn in my lathe was 32 inches – so that
part had to be made in four sections –
which has the hidden advantage that we
can take it apart for transportation.
The spindle drive is in two stages for
the machine has a ‘Miner’s Head’ built
into the system. The ratio of the first stage
between the drive wheel and the small
pulley at the top of the Main Standard on
my machine is 25 to 1, and the second
ratio between that pulley and the spindle
whorl is 4 to 1 – making an overall ratio
of 100 to 1. There doesn’t seem to have
been any set ratio for the production
wheels, but there probably was, for one
firm alone was reputed to have made
upwards of 6000 machines, of which a
1 Beginning to spin: spindle near left hand
Right: An 1864
advertisement promoting
the use of Pendulum Wheels
Below: A series of drawings
by Patricia Hilts of a
Pendulum Wheel in use
2 Spinning: spindle moves away from hand
4 Backing off in order to wind on
12
Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers 229, Spring 2009
5 Winding up the yarn: spindle moves
towards hand
3 Length of yarn spun: spindle near end of
pendulum swing
6 Winding complete: spindle near hand
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goodly number have survived, and those I
have been able to obtain ratios for have
varied between 117 and over 200 to 1.
The total swing of the pendulum on
my machine provides a draw length of
two metres thus making it very easy to
work out the number of wheel turns
required for each of the various phases of
the spinning cycle for any given count of
yarn.
As you can see from the Wait and
Buttrick advertisement (see top p. 12), the
main emphasis is on the sitting posture
and the comfort of using the machine.
Another advantage of the design was that
the spinner produced a constant drafting
zone – when the treadle hit the floor, it
couldn’t go any further so, provided she
pressed the treadle down to the floor each
time she drafted, the drafting zone was a
constant.
However, there was still another
advantage to the sitting position that is
not immediately apparent. We have
already seen that she was able to repeat
the length of her drafting stroke very
accurately, but not quite so obvious was
that the sitting position placed her right
alongside her wheel so that, by placing a
couple of fingers between the spokes near
the hub, she was able to power the wheel
without ever losing contact with it. This
was hugely important because, if she
The Pendulum wheel with a two
metre drafting zone
A modern replica of Justin Wait’s
X frame design.
Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers 229, Spring 2009
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knew the ratio of her wheel (and even if
she didn’t), provided she never lost touch
with it, she could repeat very accurately
the number of turns she used in each
separate phase of the spinning cycle to
provide her yarn with constant strength
and handle, draw after draw after draw.
Even if it wasn’t taught (and I have to
say that there is no evidence that it ever
was) it is the sort of thing that develops
automatically – one just does it without
thinking – and the better quality of yarn
produced by those who did, must soon
have caused those who didn’t to wonder
and eventually to copy – and so the
technology gradually spread!
Did the sitting position enable her to
keep spinning longer? Well undoubtedly it
could have done but, my experience of
the cottage industry is that women lead a
pretty hard life and are continually multi
tasking. They would have children to rear,
food to cook, animals to feed, fuel to
gather, water to fetch, clothes to wash,
crops to weed and so on. If they came
fresher from their spinning task, they
could work harder at the next! It was (and
still is) a pretty grim existence for a
woman for they were rarely able to rest –
and I’ve no doubt that sitting down to
spin certainly had its attractions!
In use it is a dream (see above). It is so
free and silky in action that one really can
spin for hours without fatigue, and it is
easy to see why the machine was so
popular. It is too, fascinating to watch,
with the large wheel rotating majestically
and the pendulum arm swinging silently
to and fro. In fact, I was reminded of the
first time, way back in 1960, I entered a
hall where there was a group of hand
spinners all spinning with the long draw
(which was usual in those days) and I was
smitten by the collective grace of their
movements – rather like the string section
of an orchestra – it conjures up the vision
of a composition for strings, Pendulum
wheels and long draw artistes –
something along the lines of The Skater’s
Waltz perhaps?
Acknowledgements
To Patricia Hilts, Wisconsin, USA, for
information and permission to use her drawings
of a Pendulum Spinner at work.
To Lois Schuck, Clinton, Missouri, USA, for
information and permission to use her Trolley
Wheel illustration.
To Amanda Hannaford, Cornwall, for
permission to use the illustration of her Miner’s
Head made by Gerard van de Heijden of the
Netherlands.
To Florence Feldman-Wood, Editor, The
Spinning Wheel Sleuth, for information and the
use of her line drawings and permission to draw
freely upon her work.
A Real Feel for Weaving
Barbara Mullins, Graffham Guild
I was in my seventies when my eyesight
first began to deteriorate from an inherited
form of macular degeneration.
I continued weaving and dyeing for years
but when I was finally registered blind in
2006 I thought my weaving life was over.
However, two years on, I am still weaving
every day and have just finished a kelim
rug, commissioned by a visitor at my last
exhibition a month ago.
From the start, my friends rallied round
and encouraged me to carry on, providing
both moral support and practical help.
When I was first defeated by the threading
of my loom, a friend stepped in and did it
for me.
14
Around the same time, I had been
persuaded to teach a young woman called
Harriet who was very keen to learn to
weave. I was doubtful that I could manage
with my eyesight being so bad but Harriet
was so persistent that I gave in. I am so
glad that I did, for she has been a great
help to me.
My brother, who suffers from the same
eye complaint, found a source of lighting,
daylight fluorescent, which makes all the
difference. I can now set up my own loom
and can even weave kelim rugs, which I did
not think I would be able to do any more.
One of the main problems comes with
the dyeing. I gave up natural dyeing some
Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers 229, Spring 2009
years ago and went on a course in
Denmark to learn how to dye shades of
colour with chemicals. I find the chemical
dyeing more creative now that I can mix
the dyes to obtain the colour I want. I
enjoyed natural dyeing very much but you
have to accept the colour you get and that
depends on the weather and the ground,
and it is very hard work collecting enough
plants to do it, particularly as plants do not
always grow in the same place each year.
With chemical dyeing accurate
measurements are very important and for
a blind weaver, that is very difficult.
Harriet is able to help me with the
measuring and the lifting of the heavy vats.