Machinery

Our machinery is open source, which means the plans are accessible and not patent protected. They are libre not gratis (free as in speech not free as in beer). We want the machines to be easily replicable, therefore affordable, and easy to build. As far as is possible we use accessible construction techniques that use common place tools and off-the-shelf engineering components. In our shop we supply the specialist parts that are harder to source.

We have developed three machines for processing raw, retted flax into yarn.

Breaker

Scutcher / Heckler

Spinner

Hemp processing is very similar to flax processing. We are currently running experiments to see how our flax machinery performs on hemp and what modifications might be needed.

Together with Jordon Masters we have developed drawing and spinning machinery for wool. We are currently able to produce various different weights of yarn from commercially prepared continuous sliver (or roving).

Jordon Masters is currently working on Cotton Spinning machinery.