The Solid Steel Yarn Winder

fos.tech

27 points·dharmab··7 comments

> It's actually worse than that, since I'm not really mechanically inclined at all.

... proceeds to walk out to workshop and mill a custom machine.

Dude, you're really selling yourself short if you believe that — this is amazing!

I was expecting to see something that winds solid steel yarn... disappointed it was just a steel version of a plastic device that winds regular yarn.

It's a nice piece of machining, and an illustration of how much work it takes to machine something. Redesigning that mechanism to be in balance would be a nice improvement. Look at the vibration when it's cranked.

Here's the pro version of a yarn winder.[1] This approach has less vibration. It looks like doing this at high speed gets inertia working with you to make it easier. Textile machinery often relies on that. You can't push a rope, but you can throw one. That's how a jet loom works.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/yarn-roll-winding-mac...

It's such an amazing looking device, so shiny and polished and professional looking. The craftwork is so well done that it's a bit of a shock when it wobbles so much in use.

I never thought out that before... and now I understand why the wooden one a friend owns has a big lump of lead in the spinning part as a counterweight (which, BTW, is too low, it still wobbles a little. I suspect a second, smaller, weight at the very top would help).

The final video is kind of hilarious. It's so overly massive for the task that it's making the entire table it's sitting on wobble.

The plastic and wooden winders make tables wobble as well in my experience.

That much? Dang.

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