Simon wrote.
<< I have just bought some raw wood bobbins from the USA, previously all my
bobbins have been bought in Australia, and have been plastic. Do I need to
seal these wooden bobbins with anything before spangling them? I wanted to
find out before starting in with the beads and wire, as spangling is not
something I enjoy enough to do twice, especially on about 4 dozen bobbins.>>
It depends on personal preference I think.
I have bought many beginners bobbins which come unpolished, and are cheaper
to buy when you need a large number of bobbins. I have never polished or
sealed these in anyway. As you work with them the natural oil from your
hands will seep into the wood and they will get darker and smoother over
time.
You could give them a coat of polyurethane varnish or something though it
you prefer but this could raise the grain and they would then need sanding
down and revarnishing a few times until the grain stops rising each time you
varnish them and they become smooth. But varnishing them will alter the
colour of the wood to some extent, even a clear colourless varnish will do
this.
I would not put anything like teak oil or any other wood oil on them
because that could come off on your hands and so stain the thread as you
work.
If you dislike spangling then you can speed things up with your 4dozen. Do
not cut short bits of wire for each bobbin, keep the coil of wire in tact
and make a small loop at one end to stop things falling off as you go.
It depends where you prefer to make the join in your spangles, whether you
like the cut ends of the wire to be on either side of the bottom bead or
you like the cut wire ends to be on either side of the bobbin itself,
everyone has their own way of spangling. Here below is how to spangle a
large number of bobbins ending up with the wire ends ready to go either side
of the bottom bead but you could alter the arrangement of beads to suit your
own method of finishing off the wire.
Sort your beads into sets for each bobbin before you begin and it helps to
speed things up when you come to spangle. Now put the Bottom bead onto the
wire followed by a side bead or two and the little top bead then add the
bobbin followed by the other little top bead and then the side beads.
Keep repeating this, in the same order, until the length of wire complete
with beads and bobbins becomes unmanageable. When this happens cut the
length of filled wire from the rest of the coil leaving about 4 inches or
so free on the end of the threaded length of wire to give some leeway, the
amount of free wire you leave when cutting from the main coil depends on how
many bobbins you have threaded on, the more bobbins and beads the longer the
free end of the wire needs to be as this part of the wire will gradually be
used up in the finishing off.
Now go along separating one bobbin and it's beads from the next, move the
complete spangle and bobbin to within an inch or so of the cut end of the
wire and cut the wire in between the two spangles, close to the spangle you
are going to finish off but leaving yourself enough wire to work with on the
spangle to be completed. Now finish off the ends by passing the loose end
of the wire back through the bottom bead, pulling the wire up tight to make
a nice firm spangle, and wrapping both ends around the wire on either side
of the bottom bead a few times. You might prefer to finish off in this way
but with the wire on either side of the bobbin rather than the bottom bead
so would need to change the order of threading beads and bobbin to suit.
Continue along the length of the wire until they are all done. You will
get a little bit of wastage but just little snips of wire. The time saved,
not to mention the frustration of fiddling with short bits of wire over
4doz.bobbins will be a bonus.
There are some drawings of how to finish off the wire in spangles on this
page that I found on the net.
http://www.bobbinmaker.com/spanglebobbins.html scroll down the page to see
the various drawings. Any of these methods could be used to finish off the
ends when spangling in the way I describe above you just need to thread the
beads and bobbins in the right order so that you end up with everything in
the right place for your selected method of finishing off the wire.
Regards
Jenny DeAngelis
Spain.
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