My Haldane has had a rough time of it recently. She was a working wheel, but when in the kitchen the front bearing went missing (this is a piece of leather that slots into the front maiden on the Mother of All). While the bearing was missing the flyer was placed on a shelf. I thought it was safe there until the day something was grabbed off the shelf and the flyer was knocked onto the hard tiled floor. Even as it hit I knew something was wrong. The flyer arm was broken.
This happened quite a while ago and I’ve been feeling very guilty about it.
Anyway, last weekend the central heating was serviced and the leather bearing was recovered! A slightly warm but otherwise unharmed part!
This gave me the impetus to look at the broken flyer. I decided that the best approach was to glue it back together. I didn’t want to use PVA (which I usually use for gluing wood) as it would need clamping and the flyer is a really odd shape for clamping. I was also gluing wood to metal as well as wood to wood, as the flyer arm had broken near the middle of the flyer revealing the spindle that runs through the centre. In the end I chose an epoxy resin glue. I lightly sanded and cleaned up the areas to be glued; mixed up the epoxy resin and glued the part together. It didn’t take long at all and this morning I was able to test it out.
I’m pleased to say that she works! Now all she needs is a dust and polish.
