Cage distaff

[tombear]

For no real good reason apart from i like doing new things on the lathe and id seen some while looking up about drop spindles I've decided to make a cage distaff. Its basically a device for holding the wool roving while you spin it.

Some are just a stick, some a fork and some are cage like affairs. The sort I really want to make involves either finding a suitable branch with smaller branches coming off it in a certain fashion or involves cutting a down the length of stick in such a way that several sections can be bent out wards into curves and then fixed to a central section that's been left straight to make something that looks like a giant egg whisk. Much easier to google it than try and follow the above.

However there is a form of cage distaff that I have the materials at hand to make straight away, at least most of it. So today I have turned the main part of the head from my old standbye, the 50p carboot beech rolling pin.

It's actually a bit slenderer and more elegant looking when seen side on but i wanted to get the hole in the end in the shot. In all its about 15" long and when I have the 5 pieces of round section wood ( dowel basically) steamed into ( shapes I will drill the 5 pairs of holes in the bulbous sections and glue them in place. Some designs just have 3 ( shaped parts, some at least 8 with them intertwined to make a lattice. 4 would be the easiest to do but on purely aesthetic grounds I'm doing 5.

The head will be mounted on a ash pole, the length of which i will consult with the nominal end user over. I'll cut down a broom handle , taper it slightly, turn the wide end to fit into the hole in the head and probably turn the other end to match the finial thing on top of the head as I've seen on some originals. That's if the pole part is under 30 inches which is as long as my lathe bed can handle. Otherwise I'll do it with hand tools and the end will be plain or turned separately and pinned on.

To return to the hole in the head I used a 15mm Fostner bit from a set from Lidl herself bought me in my shiny new Charnwood MT 1 drill chuck fitted to the tailstock of the lathe and it did a absolutely lovely job. There was some friction/charring but that was mainly because I was only advancing the bitt incredibly slowly as I was affeared that the job would snap if the bitt dug in too much. Nonsense really as it cut cleanly as fast as I could turn the handle on the tail stock!

ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

Nice, very nice indeed
Looking forward to seeing this develop
I have a cage distaff Eric Methven made for me years ago. It's really effective. I'd always used a wrapped and ribbon wound one before but the cage is really good. I still use the wrapped and ribboned one for flax, but for wool the cage is excellent.

M

 

[Dave Budd]

I'm looking forward to seeing this too. I need to start making more wooden tools like that myself

 

[tombear]

Cheers!

I've not had time to do anything on it today as i was out most of it going around about 20 charity shops in Accrington and Bury looking and failing to find any soapstone or similar bits to chop up and make stuff from on the lathe. Weirdly last week almost all of them had ashtrays or carved eggs or other touristy tat thats been sitting there for months. Oh well i found plenty of stuff for other folks so it wasn't a complete waste.

Sitting on buses for extended periods did give me some thinking time and it occurred to me i already had a suitable bit of wood for the staff part.
A while back I picked up a cheep two piece snooker cue, like for a couple of quid, as i needed the thick end to fix a old brass bridge I'd restored. Anyway a quick search and i found the thin end, a bit battered but plenty thick enough to mate with the head I've already turned and at 55 inches plenty long enough to cut down to size. Normally fleas and charity shops have plenty of beat up one piece pub cues for peanuts so i'll stock up on those when i can,

using th half cue will save me a lot of work, I just need to decide on the length,cut it down to size, fit it to the lathe, lightly sand the varnish off, turn a couple of inches down to 15mm to fit the hole in the head and then add some decoration to match whats on the head and then finish the ends.

Then its just the curved bits to sort, straigh they are well under a foot long so ill be able to steam them quite easily, possibly in the pressure cooker?

ATB

Tom

 

[Muddypaws]

Your reproductions of historical objects are fascinating! Even if I am not quite sure how such an object is used, I am looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

[tombear]

Ta! I do lean towards the primitive technology end of things! More my Luddite level I'm told.

This expalins it better than I can,

https://hersheyfiberarts.wordpress.com/2016/04/14/dressing-a-cage-distaff-with-wool-roving/

It turns out I don't have to go out again so after the basic chores I have bashed on with the distaff. I maligned my poor old lathe and you can actually get 35 inches between the points, possibly 36. I need to score one of those guides that fits onto the bed that supports a job on three sides anywhere along so you can actually apply pressure/cut all the way down but since I was only turning at the ends and could support the job with my hand where I was cutting the decorative rings in it wasn't a issue with this.

It was easier, and made cleaner grooves, to use a Permagrit file for those and I used a 8 inch length of old coiled wire guitar string to char the grooves to make them stand out. To make them vaguely useful the top five rings are six inches apart so they can use them as a sort of measuring stick. I sanded it down with three grades of sandpaper mainly to clean off the old varnish and dirt. I used a caliper to turn the bit that fits into the head and was gratified to find it needed minimal sanding to be a good tight fit.

Purely by chance the whole thing is exactly 48", long enough for me to use. If any one more diminutive than I uses it they can just poke it further under their belt. I saw a vid by a Italian chap where he used a across the chest sling, just a simple loop of tape as well as his belt to support it under his left arm so I'll make one of those. A bit of card woven tape would look well.

When its all done Ill wax polish it to death so the wool or whatever will slip off it nicely.

'Just need to find the wood for the ( shaped bits. I've a drill stand that can be angled so doing the holes won't be a problem. I'll print off a circle devided into 5 equal slices and use that to mark where the holes need to go on each bulbous section. No doubt there's a cleverer way but I'll apply KISS.

ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

It's going to be a beautiful piece when it's all finished

You don't need to oil it really, the lanolin from the wool will do that very well indeed. So long as it's not rough enough to catch the wool it'll be fine.

I love the attention to detail Tom, I really do.

M

 

[tombear]

Cheers Mary! I'll put something on it just to bring out the grain and seal it so the wood doesn't pick up the dirt. Also Id hate it to crack and split. Its pretty damn smooth as i finished it with 240 grit paper.

Just poking about trying to find a bendy bit of seasoned wood to do the ( bits.

ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

My distaff is a piece of blackthorn that my father cut sixty years ago. He stowed it below the floor boards to season slow to make a walking stick. Well, I didn't need a walking stick, but when my brother was renovating the house he found the stick, (and others) and I was in need of a distaff so he carved me one from the stick our Dad had cut forty years previously.
It seemed 'right' somehow

M

 

[tombear]

Aye its good when that sort of thing happens. I'm inordinately fond of the heavy walking stick I made when my left leg was in plaster to help a deep wound in the foot heal. The lads cut down a hawthorn that had died a couple of years back but Id left in the hope it would come back. Anyroad they split it down and hauled it in for me to carve to shape. Hopefully my lads will keep some of my stuff as they all seam fond of various bits and pieces I've made.

Unfortunately both sides of my family were inclined to get rid of stuff rather than keep in case future generations would be interested. The only things they keep are photos and medals. So they gave away one great grand parents tools ( was a blacksmith farrier at the pit ) and another's knives and butchery kit who'd been a part time traveling slaughterman, back when most people kept a pig and paid him in meat. Even my own mother gave away her grandmothers 20 inch pancheon to a neighbour as she never used it, having a blind spot when it came to bread. ( even the birds refused it I'm told) I didn't know it even existed until it was gone, buried in the pantry. Not that I'm bitter about that one, sniff!

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Well, to prove the pilot holes were in the right places and at the right angles i boiled some 11 inch lenghts of 1/8th" cane dowel for 5 minutes and bent them into the holes. It looks right to me, I may reduce the rods by 1/4 inch when I have some slightly thicker dowel that bends better/smoother and drill out the pilots to the final size needed. 1/4" or a bit less will be about right i think.

Unfortunately Imgur has stopped working or Id put up a pic to show you what I mean.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Imgur now working so heres the pic.

Now I need to score a couple of yards of 1/4" ash dowel to cut and steam into the bars. Well 6mm, and then drill out the pilot holes to size and glue the smoothed bars into place. Ill give them a bt of a polish with lanolin since I've a tub of it.

Next? herself has some modern carding bat things but I've seen some originals in museums and books. Now I could go the whole hog and direct copy one or i can make the wooden parts and use the spare oblongs of carding wires ( sorry no idea what they are really called ) that I know we have squirreled away. I'm not sure anyone would want to use inferior performing kit and the originals are basically lots of big sharp nails stuck to lumps of wood! Accidents waiting to happen.

I've found I a couple of feet of 1/4" dowel as I used to use it for motor pegs on rubber powered model planes before I moved onto aluminium tube. So just need another 3 foot.

ATb

Tom

 

[tombear]

Well, here it is finished less it actually being used which will be the proof of the pudding!

The hardwood (I think its ash ) dowel was easy enough to source, £2.35 got me 4.8 metres of the stuff at Fielden Factors down in the village.

The main problem was the dowel was machined any old how rather than down splits with the grain so I had a horrendous number of failures with the bars cracking across the grain no matter how long I steamed or even boiled them.. The second problem was i should have carved a mould with the right curve in to clamp them to as they dried out rater than just manipulating and wedging them into sash clamps set to the right length. saying that they are not far off matching and it won't effect actual us in the slightest. the failures wont be wasted, I straightened them up and they will be cut into pegs as required, .

ATB

Tom

 

[chas brookes]

Hi Tom this may be of interest various lathe steadies made using inline skate wheels etc

https://www.woodturningonline.com/articles.php?catid=36