Give me a Dremel and I turn into a MANIAC.

So my wooden swift that I bought off of JoAnn.com last spring has been dieing a slow, agonizing death for a few months. I have remade the center shaft, and done various over things to fix it, but with dyeing laceweight it is pretty obvious it was not made to wind 1760 yard hanks of yarn.

So I knew I had to come up with something. I didn't like any of the skeinwinders I saw online, because I needed a large width. And I don't have a huge amount of money to spend, so I decided to see if I could make one myself.

And the thing is, I was raised redneck. You give me enough PVC piping and a Dremel, and I can make anything.

So I decided to try it. I was definitely winging it. The boyfriend and I went to Home Depot today, and with the plans I laid out in my head I got what I thought I needed. The total for the parts came out to just under $12. And I made sure to get an extra 12 foot section of PVC pipe so I had plenty of room to play around with.

After we got home I fired up the Dremel. All went well, and I have the general bulk of it together. What I do need to do, though, is stabilize the turning point with washers. So tomorrow I plan to go to Home Depot and get washers and see how that works.

The skeinwinder:



The circumference of it needs to be taken down a bit, but I wanted to get into the shower (the dust from the PVC was EVERYWHERE and it was itchy), so that can be done tomorrow after I stabilize it.



And this is the "turning point".. where I need to put the washers. To be precise, I need to put one in front of the nut. And a couple where the PVC hit each other. And ignore the pink tank top, it was hard to get a picture :-p But the construction is relatively simple.

And did I mention the plastic dust got EVERYWHERE? I had to take a shower, and even the cat wasn't immune:



I fully expect this to be a work in progress, and to work out the kinks as they show up. But the pieces are relatively cheap, and with the Dremel I can do all the work myself. If I can, I would love over time to turn this into a treadle powered skeinwinder, so I can pump it with my foot instead of having to use my arm!