Friday 19 March 2010

LOUDER THAN BOMBS. SPINNERS.


Jake came all the way from the Isle of Wight!


LOUDER THAN BOMBS DAY 3. BUCKETS.



Buckets lowered for dying with Kool Aid. Water taken from upstairs kitchen. DK Swaledale dyed orange and blackberry.

LOUDER THAN BOMBS DAY 2. FACTORY FLOOR PHOTOS.


LOUDER THAN BOMBS DAY 2. FRAZZLE'S YARN.




Frazzle is hooked on the drop spindle. I challenged him to stay up all night spinning, and I think he might have done just that!He's aiming for a cardigan, and at this rate he'll get there.

LOUDER THANK BOMBS DAY 2. FLUCTUATING VOLTAGE PROBLEMS.

This is me feeling a great sense of achievement when we thought we had got the bike power generator working. It ran smooth for about 30 seconds!
Generating the power is fine. We measured it with the multimeter and the bike is sending out between 10-14 volts. What we don't understand is why the voltage is fluctuating when it comes out of the DC-DC converter. It is meant to be a steady flow. There's a little screw which we are meant to finely tune, and we finely tuned it all afternoon and got nearly nowhere.When the power reaches the DC-AC Inverter, the protection light comes on and it beeps loudly. The electric spinning wheel is turning, but intermittently.
It was kind of frustrating, but it's great to be part of a team of people, passionately trying to solve a problem. We decided there was something wrong with the DC-DC converter.

LOUDER THAN BOMBS DAY 2. MARK'S SCARVES.

This is Mark. He is studying Bio-Medicine at Kingston university and he learned to knit in October 2006.
He knits the most wonderful scarves,
and drinks cider from a horn when we have our tea breaks. Fantastic.

LOUDER THAN BOMBS DAY 2. ZARAH'S WHEEL.


Zarah 's perseverance always brings reward. She has nearly mastered her new wheel. It's a 150 year old, Danish flax wheel, which spins very fast and fine.
Zarah is half Danish and last summer when she visited her family, she found the wheel and her dad Terry cleaned it up. It's a proper piece of folk craft. Wealthy Danes wanted everything made out of Mahogany, but poorer Danes had to work with soft woods, painted for protection. Painted woodwork is very fashionable now.
This is the most exquisite wheel I've ever used, and it suits Zarah so well. We have loved watching her progress.