Spinning Wheel Restoration

We had a customer come into the shop with a bag of wood parts and a request to see what we could do. He had this spinning wheel in the basement for years and decided to spend some money and get it back into a state that he could display in his house.
The first step was to find out how it went together and what parts were either broken or missing. Once that was done and I put the available parts together I started the repair process. The spinning wheel dates back to the late 1800's, but has had previous repairs. The intent was to maintain as much of the patina and original parts as possible. The first step was to give it a complete cleaning with mineral spirits. I then started fabricating parts, such as a few new spindles. This had had to be done so that it did not have a new finished look. Hide glue was used on all the joints. The wheel itself was cracked or broken in numerous locations. This repair required some fill (bondo) and regluing. Once all the parts were finally repaired I touched-up with stain and pigments, attempting to maintain the original patina. The final part was the application of a oil finish and then a coat of wax.

Good job, Yaki! I've just wasted a few minutes unsuccessfully trying to "pick the replacement parts" in your photos. :D

It looks odd to me seeing a spinning wheel with a flax post, 'cos here in Oz they're uncommon... fleece was a lot simpler to obtain in our colonial days than flax.

I know zilch about spinning wheels and not much more about restoration but that is one seriously good looking machine - nice job mate!:2tsup:

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Originally Posted by YAKI

We had a customer come into the shop with a bag of wood parts and a request to see what we could do. He had this spinning wheel in the basement for years and decided to spend some money and get it back into a state that he could display in his house.
The first step was to find out how it went together and what parts were either broken or missing. Once that was done and I put the available parts together I started the repair process. The spinning wheel dates back to the late 1800's, but has had previous repairs. The intent was to maintain as much of the patina and original parts as possible. The first step was to give it a complete cleaning with mineral spirits. I then started fabricating parts, such as a few new spindles. This had had to be done so that it did not have a new finished look. Hide glue was used on all the joints. The wheel itself was cracked or broken in numerous locations. This repair required some fill (bondo) and regluing. Once all the parts were finally repaired I touched-up with stain and pigments, attempting to maintain the original patina. The final part was the application of a oil finish and then a coat of wax.

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Great job on the spinning wheel restoration. It's lovely now.