I had a go on a ball winder today to wind singles onto for plying from both ends, and it seems better than my toilet roll tubes! What’s better a ball winder or a cone winder? They are expensive where I am and I am looking at second hand ones on e-bay. There’s a cheap cone winder which is for machine knitters but it looks like it does the same job overall and it seems to hold more, but I’ve never seen one in the flesh. I’ve seen a video on Youtube but I was wondering if anyone here had used one??
if your going to be plying a single from both ends a ball winder would be my choice. I got my ball winder as a Christmas gift last year and I use it more than I EVER thought I would.
I kinda thought a bargain was too good to be true, I figure you can’t pull from the centre of a cone then!
Hi,
Just a small tip and something to think about if you like to spin light-weight yarn or have any plans to in the future.
I have a small ball winder that is still being made. I think I paid about $35.00. When I spin a bobbin full of lace-weight on my Lendrum and wind it ALL into a ball to ply back on itself, I find that my yarn tangles badly as it’s being plied. I think it has to do with the increased yardage creating a fatter ball (on the small winder) as opposed to a taller and fatter ball (large ball winder). I end up with lots of breaks in my plied yarn and wasted singles that is just too tangled to do anything with. This problem does not occur if I keep the ball to a smaller size with less yardage however. I just like to ply all of it at once so I can get a nice hefty skein of plied yarn instead of a couple smaller ones. So, it’s just a matter of preference but one I wish I knew about before I purchased the small ball winder.
Good luck with your decision.
I got a ball winder second hand on ebay for £8 (about $16) the Jumbo ones were only available for £50 new (bout $100) which would be a bit too hefty for me!