I have not yet finished with the planning for the wheel - I know which wood I will use, I have most of the dimensions figured out, so there's details and unsolved questions left - like "how much tension will my drive band need, and do I have to build in something acting as a brace or stabiliser for the main upright".

Also, there's the question of how I am going to procure the strip of wood necessary for the wheel rim. In contrast to winding wheels or modern treadled wheels, the Great Wheel has a slim but wide, lightweight strip of wood serving as the rim. Which I can either cut out or plane out of a board with normal thickness, or try to buy, saving me the work. So next step in line: find out if there is somewhere near me where I can buy it, at an affordable price and with measurements matching my requirements (and then figure out whether the whole strip, uncut and not yet bent, will fit into the car).

As you can probably tell from the title of this blog post, I have decided to take a shot at making a Great Wheel myself. I am going to base its construction on the well-known Luttrell Psalter image which will result in a fairly big wheel, standing on fairly long legs, with an upright holder for both the spindle and the wheel.

In contrast to later wheels that are still existing, the medieval Great Wheels never seem to have angled uprights holding the wheel itself or the spindle. There will also be no threaded tensioners; I have yet to decide whether to add a different tensioning mechanism or to just tension by changing drive band length.

The whole thing, in any case, should be
a) done so it can be taken apart easily for transport or storage;
b) not use modern materials or concepts;
c) match the Luttrell wheel as well as possible;
d) function as a proper productive spinning tool.

So the usual, the usual. Apart from the tensioning issue, however, I think I have figured out most of the details - putting together of the parts will be done by using wedges, similar to how my table substruction is held together; the legs will be conical and thus should have enough friction in their sockets to stay in there when the wheel is carried around; the largest single bit will be the wheel itself, and that is non-debatable due to construction reasons.

I am very much looking forward to this!

Sometimes, it just takes a while for all kinds of things to turn towards favourable constellations... and it seems that I might get a shot at a portable Great Wheel, with a little luck and a bit of woodworking.

For those of you not familiar with a Great Wheel: this contraption (also called Walking Wheel or wool wheel sometimes) is the very early form of a spinning wheel - basically, it's a hand-spindle mounted sideways and connected to huge lightweight wheel by a drive band.

Image from British Library Manuscript Royal 10 E IV, f. 147. Dated to last quarter of 13th or first quarter of the 14th century. Link to the catalogue entry with more information.

There are a few common problems with building a wheel like that, especially when it's part of the intended use to lug the thing along to different events: It has to be properly functional, it should be correct regarding materials and construction, and it has to be possible to take it apart enough so that it can fit into the car. Add to this the fact that the images are not always very clear, or have a proper perspective, and that one can build a functional wheel much easier if one has worked with this type of tool already, and there's quite a bunch of difficulties. Plus it's of course necessary to have the wood, the tools, and the crafts abilities to make such a thing.

Well, some of the basic construction and concept problems sort of came up with a few solutions almost by themselves yesterday evening. A woodworking workshop is at the moment magically appearing in our basement, including a gadget necessary to steam-bend wood. There also is a little leftover wood. And I should be able to procure the metal parts for the wheel with little or no trouble, the way it is planned at the moment... so I will do some thinking, and some scheming, during the next weeks. And who knows, with a little luck and some dusty woody work... there might be another wheel in my future.

(Oh. You might have heard that saying about how spinning wheels are herd animals? It's totally true. If you do not want a herd of spinning wheels, you should keep your one and only wheel isolated. Don't get a second one. Don't even lend one from someone else for a while. They will start multiplying then. It's probably best if you don't even leave it alone in another room with a second wheel. They're almost as bad as rabbits. Really. I swear.)