Making your own spools for sectional warping is surprisingly easy.
Materials List:
- Millard Mason Bee Nest Tubes
- Round wooden craft disks
- Hot glue for a hot glue gun
- Block of wood
- Piece of aluminum rod (we used left overs from the spool rack construction)
Tools Needed:
- Saw to cut tubes to length (we used a band saw at the local maker space)
- Drill press to drill holes in the craft circles (if you are careful you could probably use a hand drill but a drill press is much easier)
- Hot glue gun
Before you get into production, you need to make a measuring jig to make it easy to position the disks on the bee tubes at a consistent dimension.
To do this, drill a hole about 1/8″ – 3/16″ deep into a wood block – make sure it is a little bigger than the size of the tube. Then drill a hole in the center of that hole all the way through the block to put a dowel or rod in as a guide for the tube. We used a piece of left over aluminum but a pencil or dowel rod will work. Make sure the tube slides easily over the rod that you choose.
Steps:
- Cut the bee tubes to length. We made ours 4 inches long.
- Drill a hole in the center of each circle making sure that the hole is a tight fit with the bee tube. This makes it so you can position the wood disks on the tube with a friction fit and then glue. Otherwise it is too fiddly to keep the disks in place.
- Drop a bee tube over the rod on the measuring jig, slide a disk down over the tube until it hits the wood block. Turn the tube over and repeat for the disk on the other end. Since you have a friction fit you can carefully remove the assembly from the rod and, being mindful of your fingers, glue the outside surfaces of the wood disk as it meets the bee tube.
- Hot glue sets quickly. Move on to the next one.
