ITR - Fixing the reel
Damien Savina
How do you get the thread out of your reel when the sucking method doesn’t work or when
the thread gets twisted around the white elastic?
Unfortunately there’s no miracle solution: you’ll need to take the reel apart!
Exploded view
Here’s an exploded view of the reel after it’s been taken apart.
Taking the reel apart
In order to do this, you need to pull off one of the caps, hold the white elastic and pull slightly
more firmly. You don’t need to pull out both rubber discs. In fact, it’s easier to put everything back
together if one of the discs remains fixed inside its cap.
The rubber disc that holds the elastic in the cap should come out.
Next, remove the cap from the other side and pull out the central plastic spool. If the thread is
twisted around the white elastic, you need to break the thread, pull out as much of it as possible
from the elastic, wind the thread back around the spool (if necessary) and flatten the end of the
thread against the spool by smoothing it down with your finger.
If you can’t see the end of the thread or get to it easily, the best thing to do is to identify which
way the thread is wrapped around the spool in advance (you’ll forget to do this the first time, but
remember for the next time!) First, blow on the spool. Most of the time, that’s enough to make the
end of the thread appear.
If that doesn’t work, you need to ‘stroke’ the spool reasonably gently with the pad of your finger,
in the opposite direction to the way in which the thread is wrapped around the spool: the end of
the thread should reappear. Make sure you spend some time doing this before moving on to the
next stage.
If that still doesn’t work, you may have to pinch the spool between your fingers and turn it a little
more firmly using quick jerks.
Normally, you’ll have found the end of the thread by this stage. If that’s not the case, you’ll have to
persevere: there’s no reason why it shouldn’t reappear at some point!
It may be useful to unwind a small length (a few centimetres) and then gently and cleanly wind it
back on, without pulling too hard.
Once you’ve located the end of the thread, there are two solutions for you:
Solution 1
- The first, which makes use of the sucking technique (explained in the DVD booklet) after you’ve
reassembled everything, consists of leaving the thread lying against the spool – without pulling
on it – and putting the reel back together. As a result, you have to slide the spool into the plastic
tube. This is easier if the elastic doesn’t get caught between the spool and the tube. You can wind it
around itself a little so that part of it is lodged inside the little tube of the spool. If you have suitable
tweezers or tongs, you can push them right into the tube and use them to grip the elastic outside
it before sliding the spool into the tube.
Using tweezers, get hold of the elastic and put it back around the rubber disc before putting the
cap back onto the ITR.
Normally, if the thread has been pressed against the spool and if the spool doesn’t rub against the
inside of the tube, the thread should stay more or less in the middle of the spool. At this point, then,
you have to use the sucking technique to get the end of the thread back out of one of the holes.
Solution 2
- The second technique consists of putting a tiny ball of Blu-Tack onto the end of the thread.
The ball must be small enough to easily fit through the hole in the reel.
You then have to unwind a few centimetres of thread, or at least enough so that when you put the
thread into the tube, it comes out of one of the holes (be sure to check which hole you’d like the
thread to come out of – this depends on the hook-up you’ll be using).
Next, you need to slide the spool into the tube, making sure that the ball is able to ‘run’ freely. In
order to stop the thread and the elastic tangling, keep your finger on the spool.
Once the spool is in place, grip the elastic with tweezers and put it back around the rubber disc
before putting the cap back onto the ITR.
When you put the rubber disc back, be careful not to let the spool go past the hole from which the
thread comes out – this stops the thread getting caught in the elastic.
In order to properly secure the thread to the Blu-Tack ball, roll the ball between two fingers in one
direction around the thread. Fold the ball (which will have become sausage-shaped) in two, turn
it 90°… and do this two or three more times.
It may be necessary to pull out a little more thread or roll a little more around the spool so that
there’s not too much outside the reel when it’s not in use. To do this, turn the caps. You must always
turn the two caps in the same direction to tighten or loosen the elastic. If the caps do not turn freely
around the reel, you will need to loosen them slightly.
You should also, as far as possible, keep the spool in the middle of the ITR. If it moves, this can be
corrected by turning one of the two caps slightly, bringing the spool back to the middle. It is important not to tighten the elastic too much as you always need to be able to release enough thread for
the hook-up – roughly enough to run from one hand to the other when your arms are outstretched.
In addition, you are strongly recommended to carry out the following test each time you put the
reel back together as a way of checking that it’s working properly: once the desired length of thread
has come out of the reel, the spool should be in about the middle of the reel. If the spool is next to
one of the caps, you will need to bring it back to the middle by adjusting how tightly wound the
elastic is using the caps.
That’s it - you’re now ready to use your reel!
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