Thank you Dearl, Esther and Lorelei for your help and to the two others who contacted me privately. I was doing my nails last night when I realised that the emery board I was using was a lot finer than the sandpaper I'd tried on the bobbins, so I had another go at smoothing the bulb with the emery board. It seems to have worked well enough to stop the thread catching. But it wouldn't work on the whole bobbin - I think I'd have use the finer grades of sandpaper that you mentioned. I think that the wood is probably a bit too coarse-grained to get a really good finish.
I may not bother to polish the whole of each bobbin if it's going to be so much effort - it's quite a strain for me to do it as I have repetitive strain injury to my hands and forearms, and shoulder problems too. And I've just ordered lots of bobbins from Winslow, Acorn and Fountains - I found their websites at the weekend and got horribly carried away! So hopefully I will have enough bobbins not to need to use the unpolished ones very much - and at least they are now usable. Thanks again, Annette - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED]
