This printable wool winder creates center-pull balls from raw hanks of yarn, it must be used in combination with a yarn swift, I will work on a printable swift in the future.

I designed this winder for my mother who was having troubles with her current ball winder, a new equivalent winder was priced around $50. I felt like I could design and make a better winder for only a few $ in purchased parts (most I had around) and plastic. Plus I know how it works so if it breaks I can fix it.

The winders function is pretty simple but really fun to watch. The motion of the winder can be explained as such. The hand crank, when turned causes the center carriage mechanism to rotate around a stationary cone. The motion of the carriage in combination with the stationary cone causes the winding spindle to rotate about its axis. The winding spindle completes one rotation for every nine rotations of the hand crank. The dual spinning motion of the carriage and the spindle is what causes the yarn to take the form of a cylinder.

Video of the winder in action.

The master file zip contains all of the Creo design files.