Getting to know my new spinning wheel

UPS says that they have a box form Kromski USA out for delivery to me.  In the box are the pieces and parts of a brand new unfinished Kromski Prelude which is the smallest and lightest of their traditional styled wheels.  I can hardly wait.

Unfinished is just what it sounds like my new little wheel will be raw wood that needs a protective finish before I can use it.  And I am stuck with using stuff from a big box store...

The fastest and easiest finish would be wax and we do have the type of wax I would want to use. But wax provides the least amount of protection.

I could use pure Tung oil which makes the wood take on a beautiful soft glow but it takes a long time to cure properly when done right.  This also doesn't provide as much protection as modern finishes.  Thankfully I don't need that gobs of protection and can simply reapply this the oil as needed.

Danish Oil is another option.  This is not an oil finish but rather a type of varnish.   It does dry quickly and you can put on a multiple coats in one day if the conditions are right. It comes in different "colors" which I could use to create a two toned look on my wheel, can be sanded and different color applied over it if I decide to change the finish.  Or it can be sanded off fairly easily to apply a different type finish.  

I could stain then use a wipe on Polyurethane.  Takes longer as you have two steps  stain,  apply more stain if needed let it dry thoroughly then repeat with the wipe on Polyurethane.  It is the most protective of the finishes and of course has the most gick involved even if it is water based.

I could also paint my wheel.   This is actually a very traditional finish for wheels made with "mixed light woods"   This leaves a lot of room for creativity.  My little antique was painted black but the vintage Canadian Production wheel was actually mustard or orange...  I have seen deep burgundy red shades, dark to palest blue, white, and medium to pale green all original colors on antique wheels.  So this approach would really allow me a lot of creativity.  And of course painted decorations were common in some areas, ie a black or dark painted wheel would have flowers, ribbons, etc painted on it.    This approach would allow me to get really creative...  

I know I can get Watco's Danish Oil and that it comes in color which would allow me to play with a two tone finish... and if I go that route I can be spinning on my wheel in under 2 days...  so I am heavily leaning towards that but hmm maybe I can find a non-toxic paint...  or better one I could use a clear finish over so I can paint some parts of the wheel and leave other parts natural.  

stay tuned.  

What was easily and locally available affected my finish choices.  With the help of more experienced folks I settled on an oil based stain for the dark parts of my wheel then use Danish oil over all off the wheel.
So I ended up with Zar oil based stain in their colorway Baby Grand and Watco's Danish Oil in light walnut.   The wood for my wheel is VERY light in color, in fact it is nearly white!  So I did want to darken the unstained parts a little but not drastically.  This is why I went with light walnut instead of natural/clear version of the Danish oil.  

EDITED to add photos
Step one for any kit is to unpack all the pieces and parts.  Compare them to the list of parts in case something is missing.
making sure everything is here by spindledreams, on Flickr
OOPS yep I had a piece missing so I contacted my seller and she got in touch with the company.  My replacement part will be in the mail on Monday and I should have it by the end of the week.  In the meantime I will go ahead and stain all the parts I do have, then use the Danish Oil on every thing so when my little very important tension adjustment screw arrives I will be ready to spin.

Here is where I am at tonight.  All parts stained that needed it, the white parts will only get coats of Danish Oil.  Hopefully the light walnut color will tone down the WHITE on them
stained parts by spindledreams, on Flickr

The Danish Oil turned out to be darker then I expected but I like how  the wheel turned out.  Note: Danish oil actually has thinners and other chemicals in it and does need to be used with lots of ventilation.  I let it cure for a couple of days before putting the wheel together but ended up setting it outside today during our warm weather to further air out due to the odor.

This wheel has a lovely small footprint for a saxony style wheel and is only about 9 pounds so easy to pick up and move around.   The light weight and design does give this wheel a few quirks.  It is top heavy and tends to fall backwards easily,  It needs less treadle pressure then either of my other wheels and I can even keep it going with my damaged left leg.  That was a VERY big surprise as I can't even push the treadle on my Elizabeth with that leg.,

The missing tension screw has been mailed and is supposed to arrive on Friday (today is Tuesday)  Until it gets here I can't actually spin on my wheel but I can practice treadling and have it all set up so once it gets here all I need to do is put it on the wheel and spin.
Finished by spindledreams, on Flickr

That looks amazing!  Thank you so much for sharing your journey.  

I decided to back up a few steps for this post so I could show you photos of my process.   You should always do a test of your selected finishes to see how they will look on the finial project by using using them on an inconspicuous spot on your project or on scrap lumber from the project.   In this case I used the bottom of my treadle and a bit of the bottom of the table.    The test let me see how dark my stained wood would be and how the dried stain and Danish oil would interact.
Here you can see my test patch on the table wood. The writing on the table is the person who did quality control and the date it was made.
testing finished table by spindledreams, on Flickr

And here is my test on the bottom of the treadle.  This actually let me see how the treadle wood AND the wood on the treadle bar reacted to the stain and oil
testing finish choices by spindledreams, on Flickr

This took a few days as I wanted the stain totally dry and to let the Danish Oil cure for at least a day.   The tests let me know that yes I would get the results I wanted when used on the whole wheel.  If they hadn't I would have backed up and tried another combination.  

My wheel is now all together and I have been spinning on her for a couple of weeks.  I do have to say I am in love with her.   When I first got her together and started to treadle and spin on the wheel it would give an occasional chirp that turned into a regular stream of chirps and noise...  DH located a small patch of corrosion on the wheel axel.  Once it was removed and the wheel replaced she was fine.  But in the meantime the wheel earned the name of Sparrow because she is small, brown and sometimes chirped...

The Prelude is a single drive wheel with scotch tension.  In other words it has a drive band that goes from the drive wheel to the flyer and a separate tension band for the bobbin.  It comes with a poly drive band and a hemp cord for the scotch tension.   The poly band makes tensioning the drive band easy .  You want the least amount of tension on it needed to make it turn the flyer.  The scotch tension is used to slow the bobbin slightly so the faster flyer can wind the just spun single onto the bobbin.  The hemp cord and spring is actually very responsive and even slight tweaks can make a big difference.  I have not done much spinning on this setup recently so that first spin was a bit of a learning/remembering experience.  

Before I could actually spin on Sparrow I had to put leaders on the bobbins.  In my case I use crochet thread tied in a long loop that I wrap around the bobbin and pull the end through then through again to make something like a half hitch.   Harder to describe  then to actually do...  I did this with all three bobbins.  
bobbins with leaders by spindledreams, on Flickr

Then came my first spin using some of that bonus fiber I got with the wheel.  That of course is when we discovered that chirp mentioned earlier... still aside from that noise problem I was pleased with how she spun.  I did have one concern and that was how far apart the hooks on the flyer are and how it was winding on with high and low spots...
first spin by spindledreams, on Flickr