Restoration of Old Spinning Wheels

Yesterday was a lucky day and I received a cute old spinning wheel. It is very beautiful, came with a distaff full of old flax and some thick spun wool on the bobbin. However there are many broken parts and things that need fixing before this wheel will be ready to produce a yarn.
At this point I thought it might be nice to make a post about restoring old spinning wheels and how to make them work.

The first part might be the most tricky one and requires some experience. You need to determine what type of spinning wheel you have in front of you - single or double drive - flyer or bobbin lead - which kind of tension/break etc etc... Some useful information around the types of spinning wheels you can find here on the website of The Woolery. If you don't find out which kind of wheel it is, try posting a picture in a spinner's forum (e.g. on ravelry), there you will get help for sure :)

My old wheel is a single drive, single treadle wheel. In the beginning I thought it might be a wheel only for flax, but the thread on the bobbin is definitely wool, and it's also possible to remove the flyer for exchange of bobbins. It has a bobbin lead and a break on the flyer, this assembly is called Irish tension.

Also it has some beautiful decorations, which might mean that it is a "wedding wheel": it was quite common in the german speaking area around 100-150 years ago to give spinning wheels as wedding presents, and they often came with beautifully turned decorations.

The next steps will be:

Fixing of the wooden frame

First the wood should be cleaned with a wet cloth to remove dust and dirt. Then it will need some glue or even small screws to fix broken pieces. Afterwards the surface of the wood will be sanded smooth and treated with a beeswax balm.

Fixing of the wheel's functions

When the wood is nice and good again it's time to do the "real" fixing and make the wheel work again. This means screwing some new hooks in to the flyer and adding a new drive band. Maybe the connection between treadle and wheel needs some adjustments, and the leather band of the break needs to be replaced or at least greased a bit. Talking about greasing... the wonder medicine for old wheels is oil! It is worth to have some good spinning wheel oil to grease all the connections and pieces that experience friction from time to time (also on new wheels).

I did all these steps before on my beloved Ashford Traditional. This girl I rescued from being thrown to the trash and she was in a quite bad condition. Now she has a new sliding hook flyer, a polycord drive band, bobbins, some color and wax, a lot of oil and a name: Zora :)
She is my darling and I spin everything on her... here is a picture:

I will keep you updated about the restoring process of the old goat!