Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Make Your Own PVC Swift!

This nice woman on one of the Spinning lists I'm on just posted a link to her website with instructions on how to make a yarn skein winder out of PVC. Here's the link just in case anyone reading my blog might be interested.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How nifty! And I bet it costs less to make one than it does to buy one.. unlike the yardage meter. :P Didja know you can use pennies -- as in the currency destined to be phased out because the copper used to make one now costs about 1.5 cents? -- to do mordanting? Don't know how many you need, but I thought you might like to know.

6:45 PM, October 04, 2006
RaeS said...

I bet it does cost a lot less than what it costs to buy one. I made 4 niddy-noddies out of PVC for about $10, including the can of Rustolium spray paint for plastic that I needed to paint them a pretty dark blue.

I didn't know that pennies could be used for mordant. I did hear that copper scrub-y things can be used for that tough... That's crazy that the copper costs more than the coins are worth, face value... Surely there's something they can add to the alloy to make it equal out to 1 cent? Or ya know, they could always make the pennies worth more at face value... Like Helena Bonham-Carter declared that they had to make a shilling that was actually worth a shilling in the movie "Lady Jane." ::giggles:: I'm a little punchy right now...

9:13 PM, October 04, 2006
Anonymous said...

Nickels are the same way, apparently. The actual nickel used to make the coin costs closer to six cents than five, so they're supposedly planning to phase that out, too. That means that prices will be rounded up to the nearest 10: $2.99 will go up to $3, and so on. I'm not sure how this will affect sales tax, but surely that will need tweaking if there aren't any pennies to make up the 6% (WV is 6% sales tax, you see) or what have you.
Do you think the aluminum in a soda can or foil would work if you boiled it? I've heard of people using rusty nails as an iron mordant, and I've had a small amount of luck using the cast iron pot -- usually with unexpected results, like the yucky color I originally got with the beet leaves.
Yes, I've seen that movie! She was surprised that the shillings were made out of copper or some base alloy when she'd expected something made of silver; thought the copper shilling was a penny, I think? That was a cool -- but sad! -- movie.

12:57 AM, October 05, 2006
RaeS said...

I think I heard somewhere that aluminum has to be in salt form - alum essentially - for it to dissolve significantly in water. Do you think that your experience with yucky colors when using an iron pot might be due to the fact that iron generally saddens (and possibly browns?) colors?

Here in FL the sales tax is 7%.

Did some research (because, let me tell you, research is my life - lol!), and found that a Bill, HR 5818 - the COIN Act, was introduced in the House on July 17, 2006 by Jim Kolbe (R-AZ). He wanted it to go through because since Arizona has the biggest copper sources in the country, they would benefit greatly from the increase in nickel production because nickels are now primarily composed of copper... didn't know that... The penny is actually primarily composed of zinc with a copper cover, and apparently he gives the official reason for doing away with the penny as due to the rise in zinc prices. A penny is actually only 2.5% copper... (perhaps they won't really work as a mordant then? I don't know...) But anyway, it looks like the Bill was never even voted on because I can't find any evidence of it being voted on at www.House.gov and it is mentioned on wikipedia in the past tense and in hypotheticals.

2:36 AM, October 05, 2006

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