Wheel Review - SpinAway Holiday Wheel

The nice thing about spinning wheels these days is that there is something out there suitable for anyone. A wheel that is just not working for one person will be the bee's knees for another. That was the case between me any my Majacraft Little Gem II. Nice enough wheel, and goodness knows I adore the Majacraft Rose, but at the end of the day I found the tension adjustment a nuisance, the portability not quite everything I was hoping for, and so decided to try for a different travel wheel, the SpinAway Holiday wheel. I'd gotten to try it out last summer at Spinning Day at the Winery and thought it was just fantastic. The waiting list was long (so long that the manufacturer's, a lovely pair of folks, have closed the waiting list for now so they can work through their back orders) but I am a patient soul - no giggling, now - and my wheel finally arrived last week.This post is a review of the wheel, purely from my perspective. Other folks may say "but that's not how it worked for me" and they'd be absolutely correct. So, as they say, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

Item 1 - Travelability
Wheel assembly is a critical feature of a travel wheel. If the thing doesn't come together/pull apart reasonably easily, and if it doesn't fit in convenient bags or cases, what's the point? Here is a picture of the wheel fully disassembled. Putting it together is pretty easy.


Getting the treadles on and the wheel in its little base was quite easy. First time I did it, though, I put the wheel assembly on backwards with that little wheel in front on the right instead of the left. I quickly figured out that puts the flier on facing away from you when you would be spinning - obviously not correct, and quickly fixed.


Here is another picture of the wheel halfway put together. This is an accelerated wheel, meaning the larger wheel turns a smaller wheel in the assembly so that you can get big wheel ratios on a little tiny wheel. There is obviously some magic going on in that compartment - I have no idea if he's got gears, straps, or gnomes in there connecting the big wheel part to the smaller part. It works, it doesn't require me to do anything, so I'm fine with it. My sweetheart, however, stares at it a lot trying to figure it out. Perhaps I need to lock my wheel up when I am not home lest his curiosity gets the better of him!


The next step is to get the bobbin post and the tensioning system set up. You can see a black rubber cord that connects the little wheel to the whorl. It is quite stretchy, and does not have a huge impact on tension. That's where a second cord comes in - you can see it on the blanket behind the wheel.


That thin white cord is made of nylon, I believe, and is the primary tension for the bobbin. When you put it on, it is in a figure 8 folded back on itself, and you want no tension at all on the bobbin. It's not a particularly stretchy thread, so don't fight with it. You'll hurt its feelings and it will probably break. So, no tension when looping it over the bobbin and around the little wheel.


The flier is the next thing to go on, and it just slides in to the post holding on the bobbin. Easy-peasy. I do believe I'll be putting little beads on the end of the metal hooks on the flier, though the makers were careful to make sure the end of the hooks are rounded. Still, it is a nice way to both personalize the wheel a bit and to make sure those ends are not going to catch on fibers.


Item 2 - Spinning
A very wise spinner by the name of Judith Mackenzie McCuin has all her students "tune" a wheel as their first exercise in class. The idea is to see what range of fiber diameters you can get from your wheel. By adjusting the tension and the drive band between the two available ratios, one should be able to get some reasonable variation in fiber diameter. The Holiday wheel is an accelerated spinning wheel with only two ratios and more of a double-drive type tensioning, definitely a change for me from my previous travel wheel's scotch tension system. So, I started with spinning with varying tension on the small whorl, then repeat that with the larger whorl.


Working with an undyed merino top, I was able to comfortably get about 6 different yarn thicknesses with the combination of tension adjustment and ratio change. I could have probably stretched it a bit either way, but the focus here is on Comfortable. This is not my primary wheel, I am not trying to make lace or novelty yarn, so this was just fine for me. Fiber spun past either the thinnest or thickest shown above got quite, ah, variable. Serious thick-and-thin spots, which is fine if that's what you are aiming for, but not what I wanted out of this exercise.

Item 3 - Maintenance
For the most part, this wheel needs very little maintenance. A bit of oil on the posts going in to the tension system help make sure that system moves up and down smoothly, and a damp cloth to get the dust off will help the rest of the wheel. As far as I can tell, no other maintenance is required. If the drive band or tension band break, spares are included with the wheel.

As part of the question of maintenance, I want to talk a bit about what kind of customer service you can expect if something does go wrong with your wheel. When buying a wheel, one of the things you should ask yourself is "what do I do if something breaks? Will the manufacturer be helpful?" Things break, fact of life. But if you've got a good company standing behind their product, it's all ok. When I first got my wheel, there was a problem with one of the treadles staying attached to the wheel. Norm at SpinAway was fabulous about it. We talked on the phone and he immediately understood the problem. He covered the cost of me sending the wheel back for the necessary adjustment and got everything sorted out in just a few days. If I'd lived closer than 3000 miles away, it wouldn't even have taken that long. He made sure I felt taken care of (in a good way) and I am happy to report an excellent customer service experience.

And that's the wheel review! I hope you found it useful. I know several folks out there have been waiting to get the full details, some of whom are on that waiting list anxiously awaiting their own wheel. Be patient, folks, it's worth it!