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Concept
Spinning wheel
Summary
A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from fibres. It was fundamental to the cotton textile industry prior to the Industrial Revolution. It laid the foundations for later machinery such as the spinning jenny and spinning frame, which displaced the spinning wheel during the Industrial Revolution.
The basic spinning of yarn involves taking a clump of fibres and teasing a bit of them out, then twisting it into a basic string shape. The spinner continues pulling and twisting to make it longer and longer, and to control the thickness. Thousands of years ago, people began doing this onto a stick, called a spindle, which was a very lengthy process.
The actual wheel part of a spinning wheel does not take the place of the spindle; instead, it automates the twisting process, allowing one to "twist" the thread without having to constantly do so manually, and also the size of the wheel lets one more finely control the amount of twist. The thread still ends up on a spindle, just as it did before the invention of the wheel.
The wheel itself was originally free-moving, spun by a hand or foot reaching out and turning it directly. Eventually, simple mechanisms were created that let a person simply push at a pedal and keep the wheel turning at an even more constant rate. This mechanism was the main source of technological progress for the spinning wheel before the 18th century.
The history of the spinning wheel is disputed, with:
J.M Kenoyer, involved in the study of the Indus Valley Civilization speculating that the uniformity of the thread and tight weave from a clay impression indicates the use of a spinning wheel rather than drop spindles, but according to Mukhtar Ahmed, the spinning whorls used since prehistoric times by the Indus Valley people produce a tight weave.
Dieter Kuhn and Weiji Cheng propose the spinning wheel originated in Zhou dynasty China, in the first millennia BCE, are mentioned in Chinese dictionaries of the 2nd century CE, and in widespread use by c.
Official source
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