dropping a spindle off a cliff

May 8, 2017 11:14 PM

I heard a rumor that someone somewhere drops spindles off a cliff and spins and spins and spins, and then yanks the spindle back up. Possibly sort of like a yoyo. IS IT TRUE?!

Spinning right off the rabbit I was able to confirm but I'm having more trouble finding more info on this one.

posted by aniola to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

I'm not an expert spinner, but it doesn't seem to me that most roving would have the tensile strength not to break if a weight was attached to one end and that end was dropped from a height.
posted by praemunire at 1:08 AM on May 9, 2017

Not possible and not because of the tensile strength of the single (silk for example is pretty strong). Even a well-designed, balanced spindle will only spin so long before running out of energy, stopping and spinning the other way. A good spinner can easily spin to the ground (and beyond) standing up but not all the way down a cliff. So the spindle won't get far down the cliff before this happens and you lose the spindle down the cliff forever after it backspins. I suppose it's fine if the person pulls it back up someway down the cliff when she sees that it has run out of energy.
posted by whitelotus at 2:55 AM on May 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

Maybe you're thinking of Abby Franquemont's description of goofing off as a kid by plying yarn off a terrace? It's in this blog post.
posted by there's no crying in espionage at 6:05 AM on May 9, 2017 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I've heard Abby tell the story more than once, and I've done it off a balcony a few times as a proof of principle. It doesn't work like a yoyo, you butterfly the yarn around your hand to bring the spindle back up.
posted by tchemgrrl at 6:46 AM on May 9, 2017 [2 favorites]