Ways to repair the hub on an Ashford spinning wheel

The pin - it sounds right to me.  It should fit in the hole in the axel/crank so tight that you can't pull it out (you need to hammer it out).  

You can buy a new pin if you like.  

I didn't read all of these posts, sorry.

If you want to fill that crack on the flywheel, lay it flat and use thin-set CA glue to stabilize the crack.   If you want to make it look good lay it flat, fill with fine sawdust  and fill with Thin CA (the color of the saw dust will darken a bit when you use the glue. .  Do it in stages, get as little CA on the surrounding wood as possible.  Once the glue dries (pretty quick) sand with a high-grit sand paper and hit it with walnut oil.   There are wood dies you could use to match but I think a battle scar would make it look cool.

Scott Foster wrote:I didn't read all of these posts, sorry.

If you want to fill that crack on the flywheel, lay it flat and use thin-set CA glue to stabilize the crack.   If you want to make it look good lay it flat, fill with fine sawdust  and fill with Thin CA (the color of the saw dust will darken a bit when you use the glue. .  Do it in stages, get as little CA on the surrounding wood as possible.  Once the glue dries (pretty quick) sand with a high-grit sand paper and hit it with walnut oil.   There are wood dies you could use to match but I think a battle scar would make it look cool.

It works well for looks, however, It's very hard to undo this style of repair if someone wants the wheel made useable again. The balance of the wheel needs to be precise.  

I like this kind of repair for areas that aren't moving.

Two nights ago, I added extra beeswax to my homemade polish and added a layer to the wood rubbing it in thoroughly. Last night I took a clean soft cloth and polished everything up.

Next step is to start reassembling. I'm wondering if I should put some C clamps on the hub to support it while I push the axle through? Or just have the hub supported on a firm surface?
Also, how easy will it be to get the hole in the axle to line up with the hole in the hub for re-installing the pin? I feel like I'll be sliding around in the blind, but then, I've never done this before and it may turn out to be easier than I think and I'm being anxious for no reason.

To put the axel back in, you push it through the frame, then the hub, then the other side of the frame.

To line them up, make a note of how the hole in the axel lines up with the bend in the crank before pushing it in.  step 5 in this pdf

Remember that the "pin" had a long section and a short section? The long section is long enough to do what it is supposed to do. Do you think the short section may have been an attempt to "balance" the wheel? Is there anything to look for along these lines?

When I went to take the axle off after the pin came out, I could shine a light right through the "pin" hole. I was still able to do so, but I couldn't "see" it, because the wheel rim now is firmly blocking the view - yippee!!

The long section looks the right length to me.  I suspect the short section was to try to push the long pin all the way in, but then got stuck so they left it.  I wouldn't use the short section.

Actually, I generally leave the hub pin sticking out a bit in case I need to remove it.  

Is there glue in the hub pin hole?  Or in the hole where the axel goes?  It might be worth getting a drill bit the right size and gently scraping out any glue that oozed into those holes.

I used a kitchen skewer to not only check that the holes lined up, but also that there wasn't anything blocking, and the pin went in with just a little wiggling of the axle as the pin reached it. Spinning the wheel, I clearly didn't manage to get it in a perfect plane, but normally that would be done with fancy jigs - not on a dining room table! It may not end up being good enough for what a professional would want, but if it's good enough for me to learn on, I'll be content.

On a new wheel, the tolerance for wobble is about 3 to 6mm.  On an older wheel, you can have quite a bit of wobble, so long as the drive band doesn't jump off.  

I got the drive band on, and practiced just making the wheel go. The band seemed to stay on fairly well, only jumping off when I did something a little erratic. Keeping it going smoothly as the Pitman rod goes over the top of the curve seems difficult. At this stage, since the wheel seems functional, I suspect I will try to spend a little time watching Youtube videos about actually spinning! And practicing using the treadle!
The instruction book recommends starting with something called, 'wool sliver', but I doubt the shops that would normally carry such stuff are unlikely to be open. The only raw material I have for actual spinning is poodle fur. I also have some thin material that I wanted to ply up to something thicker, but I don't know if that's considered harder or easier than turning wool into worsted. I also can't reliably remember all the new vocabulary. Lots to work on!

practice treadling without the driveband.  ( we stoll need to tune the motherofall and talk about proper driveband management).  keep it going the same direction (traditionally clockwise, but it is your choice), starting, stopping, fast and slow.  one to two hours is a good amount of practice and it is worth it!

Tutorials on how to spin yarn: https://www.ashford.co.nz/tutorials/spinning-tutorials
There are videos near the top and further, down the page there's a PDF version of the booklet that comes with the new Ashford Wheels.

If you want to go for vintage, your wheel probably came with something like this (pdf download): https://www.ashford.co.nz/images/download_pdfs/assembly_past/booklet/learn_to_spin.pdf

And here are some guidelines on tuning your wheel (pdf): https://www.ashford.co.nz/images/download_pdfs/assembly_past/spinning/spinning_wheel_maintenance.pdf

I've been accepted as a Canadian Ashford dealer, so I can source supplies if you end up needing any.  

This is so helpful. I came back to it a couple times. It was very difficult getting the pin out of the wheel hub. It is an older model and the pin was straight. Took a lot of hammering to get out. I used a lubricant a couple times, left it over night which helped. Go the hub re-glued and will be working with a repair kit to get it working like new again. Thank you for this share.

Welcome to permies, Cathreine. If you took some pictures, we'd love to see them. Hanging on to this sort of knowledge is important, so I'm glad we were able to help you by documenting my experiment in this thread.