Joyner metal frame gin spinner on display at the Tennessee State Museum.
To all who have been a help in our learning about cotton gin spinners, or are at least interested:
John Lovett at the Falls Mill Museum was donated a Joyner gin spinner by the Travellers’ Rest in Nashville, Tennessee, and has been working ever since to clean it up and restore it. There are new saw blades, new carding cloth, some new pulleys, new cording and belting, pieces of the draft stretchers, spinner flyers, and bobbins.
Today the new apron that rides overhead and delivers the seed cotton to the gin was put in place and I arrived soon after. The first two YouTube movies below show the operation of the various sections with the cover and apron in place. The second has those pulled back so you can see the carding drums. The third shows the cotton after being ginned and passing over the carding drums in six strands. Many misconceptions about how these marvels work were dispelled today in my mind.
John was able to catch a slyver as it came off of the second carding drum doffer and feed it into the draft stretchers. We abandoned the other five sections to concentrate on this one till we could work out the technique. From there he trained it through the top of its spindle, to the flyer and to a bobbin. We made one short fairly weak strand of thread, and considering that neither of us has ever seen one of these in operation, that was amazing to behold. Myron Stachiw in Lowell, Massachusetts, restored a Pearce gin spinner in the 1970s, and is thus the only person I’ve known who had operated a gin spinner. That machine has a doffer brush behind the gin saws, as do all standard cotton gins. The Joyner doesn’t, rather using the first carding drum also to pull the fiber bat from the saws.
youtu.be/uP022RYkDRo – Falls Mill Joyner Gin Spinner first operation, Sept. 29, 2017 – operation of all sections with apron and cover in place
youtu.be/9lBz7iw3OqQ – Falls Mill Joyner Gin Spinner first operation, Sept. 29, 2017 – operation of all sections with the apron and cover removed
youtu.be/dGkqPNR9Tb8 – Falls Mill Joyner Gin Spinner first operation, Sept. 29, 2017 – six slyvers forming across the second carding drum
So enjoy the only known movies of a gin spinner in operation.
