Several years ago, I mentioned a train case that I'd altered to keep my Electric Eel Wheel 4 in. Well I've got the Electric Eel Wheel 5 now and I've finally got around to finishing the case properly.
The bag is a train case that I bought on Amazon. I chose it because it's sturdy and compact, but a good size for the Electric Eel Wheel and accessories. With a bit of alteration, I was able to give it a protective wooden base and make it double as a lazy Kate too.
Here's the wooden base that came with the train case, once the hinged shelves had been removed. I knew that I wanted to keep the rods for my lazy Kate inside the case all of the time, so that I could ply while I was traveling. With my Dremel tool, I cut a couple of brass rods to fit the diagonal of the base to give me the maximum possible length of rods.
The base of the case was rigid, but I also wanted to strengthen the sides as this would be where my lazy Kate rods came through. My other half cut some squares of wooden board to fit onto the sides and he then drilled some holes to correspond with the holes I'd drilled into the sides of the bag. I spray painted these boards black and then attached extra strong double sided sticky tape all around the edges.
---------- Materials used to Alter the Train Case
- Train case
- Dremel tool for grinding, cutting and drilling
- E6000 glue
- 6mm hollow round brass tube
- Large scrapbooking eyelets
- Rubber o-rings
- Strong double sided sticky tape
- Wooden board cut to size
- Black spray paint
- Hacksaw to cut the wooden board
The only problem with a lot of train cases is that they come with these hinged sections, which, if you want to use it as a makeup bag, are very handy, but make it impossible to put the spinning wheel in the bottom. These little hinged shelves were attached to a wooden base, which I wanted to keep for added protection, so I used a grinding tool attached to my Dremel to grind down the rivets to separate the upper part of the insert from the lower part. This was really the hardest part of the alteration as those rivets took some grinding down!
I'd bought a tallish, rigid case as I knew that I also wanted to use it as a simple lazy Kate; (it also gives me a lot of space above the wheel for storing fibre). I held up two bobbins, side by side, next to the case and then marked the centres of the bobbins. I then drilled two matching holes on either side for the lazy Kate rods to go through.
I had some large scrapbooking eyelets left over from my paper crafting days and I glued them into the holes with E6000
to neaten it up a little.
to neaten it up a little.
The base of the case was rigid, but I also wanted to strengthen the sides as this would be where my lazy Kate rods came through. My other half cut some squares of wooden board to fit onto the sides and he then drilled some holes to correspond with the holes I'd drilled into the sides of the bag. I spray painted these boards black and then attached extra strong double sided sticky tape all around the edges.
To make sure that the reinforcing boards were perfectly aligned, I inserted the brass rods into the holes and carefully slid the boards into place. (There's actually a mistake in this picture as I later realised that I needed to remove the wooden base before I could attach the sides, as the wooden boards fit snugly behind the base.)
You'll notice that I've looped a couple of rubber O rings over the ends of my brass rods. I originally found that occasionally, the rods would work their way out of the holes while I was plying. I found that putting these O rings on one end acted as a stopper and my rods no longer fall out.
I love that I can now ply 2, 3 or 4 singles together and keep everything neatly stored away afterwards.
There's now room for The Electric Eel Wheel, lazy Kate rods, at least 4 bobbins, a battery, foot pedal and lots of room on top for fibre.
Well it took me a couple of years to finish my case properly and I'm now looking for a similar, smaller case for my Electric Eel Wheel Nano, which should arrive in the summer. Any ideas?!
This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links to similar products that I purchased myself to alter the train case. If you click through and purchase, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
At this point, I normally suggest similar related blog posts, however, my list of spinning-related content is becoming a little unmanageable... If you'd like to read more blog posts about spinning and fibre preparation, please take a look at this page here where you will find links to all of my spinning and fibre articles.
Thank you for reading, and happy spinning!
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Wow! I love your case! It's so classy. I have been looking for ideas and this is very inspiring :)
ReplyDeleteWow! I love your case! It's so classy. I have been looking for ideas and this is very inspiring :)
ReplyDelete