Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Time trials

The goal of today was to see just how fast we are processing fiber at this point in time from washed fiber to skeined yarn.  Also, we need to know how much ends up on the floor instead of in a skein (and this is why it is an industry unwritten standard to charge for weight of finished product, not received weight). 

We started with 3 lbs.  The carding went really, really well.  Pin drafting went fairly well.  There are a couple of rough places in the machine that snag fiber and cause an uneven roving.  We had to stop a couple of times to work on that.  We did not include that time in the trial overall time.  The second trip through the pin drafter is supposed to go better tham the first.  It took about the same because of the mechanical issues. 

The spinner is where we ran into real issues.  We got it up and running no problem - three bobbins going, making yarn, while we still had fiber going through the pin drafter.  We thought we had worked out a lot of kinks with our spinning yesterday.  And we had.  just not as many as we thought.

We can not explain it but all is going well can go straight to you know where in a heart beat at the spinner right now.   We must have used at least an hour and 12 ounces of fiber in ways we did not anticipate or expect or want.  But we finally got it working as we wanted (there were some mechanical issues as well but we stopped worrying about the time. 

We ended up with about 1300 yards of 2 ply yarn.  Unfortunately, we "lost" about 12 ounces, mainly on the spinner.  You can see why in a second:

The roving travels overhead.  It comes down, goes under the red roller at the top.  Then it goes behind the grey belt and under the grey wheel.  Where the fiber gets "lost" is that it wraps on the green wheel while waiting for you to get the yarn going.  These little poofs or tribbles (if you are a trekkie) get removed and not made into yarn on this machine.  This poof was bad and wrapped on the grey wheel.  It has been cut to remove it.  It comes off nice and pressed and straight. We had a lot of these poofs today....

So, we will do another time trial in the next day or so.  Please do not think that we are never going to get it right, or it will take forever or we will lose a lot of your fiber.  This was our first real attempt to do everything in one day.  We are happy and we will improve!

Now, after yesterday's bump incident, it was decided I must have threaded the bobbin incorrectly.  But look at what happened to Craig's today:

Craig's bump.  Someone did not have the
patience to work it off in 1 piece!  So, see,
it was not how I threaded the bobbin!
But the pieces make excellent
dreadlocks!

No comments:

Post a Comment