Posted by WellAnFree on Saturday, 3 October 2009, at 3:01 a.m.:
Hi everyone,
I have been using a drop spindle for about a year now, and finally decided to spend the money on a spinning wheel.
I found what I thought was a nice Ashford traditional wheel for a price I could afford, so I bought it.
The woman selling it acted so sad, she said she had used the wheel when taking spinning classes, and how her teacher had helped her learn to use it, and how much yarn she had spun on it and it always kept tension and so on...
Liar!
Once I got the wheel home and really sat down to look it over, there is no way she could have used this wheel for anything but perhaps decoration. The bobbins that came with it don't fit the flyer, the wheel was completely out of true with the whorl, (I'm surprised the drive belt string didn't come right off when she was demonstrating it,) the leather connection between the footman and the treadle was over two inches long and caused a "hiccup" sort of feeling to the treadling (which I had blamed on my not being accustomed to treadling.)
Worst of all is the bolt that holds the footman to the crank. There is no nut, no bushings, nothing but the bolt. When I try to treadle clockwise the bolt tightens up against the footman and jams, and when I treadle counterclockwise it eventually unscrews itself from the crank and the footman falls off.
I've been able to work out all the other problems with my poor mistreated wheel, proper tension, proper bobbins, aligned the wheel, and so forth, but there is still the major problem with this bolt.
I learned that this is the original bolt, but it is missing the nuts and bushings. I've had some talks with the guys at the local hardware store about it, but their suggestions don't quite work, and most surprising, I can't find any information about it on the web.
Please, does anyone know what is needed to get this axle bolt to work, and how it all fits together?
Thank you, thank you!