Shop Updates and the Belni Prototype

Welcome to the Good and Basic Etsy Shop!

We have recently released the Good and Basic spinning wheel on the shop in two variants: a complete kit that comes with all the 3D-printed parts, all the pre-cut wood parts, and all the nuts, bolts and other fasteners to put it together for $275, and a kit that includes only the 3D-printed parts for $135. I believe this is now the least-expensive castle wheel anywhere on the market. More details on that project in the next post. 

Designing, prototyping, and reprototyping this wheel to make it high-quality, low-cost, and easy to assemble took the better part of 3 months and a fair bit of inspiration. I am grateful to see the printed parts click together and to see the listings on Etsy in all the color variations.

As always, I have released the design files for free on Thingiverse as my contribution to the community. The files and the assembly instructions are free to download and build under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license. That means that you are welcome to build one for yourself, but I remain the only one who can legally sell them.

With the wheel done, I have turned to three other design projects. I have prototyped a flax hackle at the request of a member of our community which could be production-ready in a week or so, and I just finished the first prototype of a 3D-printed ball winder. 

But the project that is really getting me excited lately is my roving machine or Belni. This machine, when done, will enable you to create your own consistent roving at home! I took inspiration for this project from roving machines that I have seen made in India and more especially from the Ambar Belni, a device that people would use to create the thin cotton slivers that were spun on the Ambar Charkha. 

This project is aimed at eventually producing a home-scale automatic spinning machine based on the ideas in the Ambar Charkha. It’s hard to overstate how excited I get about that machine. The Ambar Charkha represented a fusion of the best parts of the local production ideals of the Swadeshi movement and the best parts of industry and technology. Rather than using technology to replace people and local skill with centralized factories, the Ambar Charkha, like the washing machine, singer sewing machine, and home computer, enhanced the productive power of the home. This decentralized empowerment of people to take charge of their own things is what gets me excited about 3D printing, learning old-fashioned skills, and sharing what I learn in the process.

I hope you will check in to the Good and Basic Etsy shop and Youtube channel often to share the journey with us.

If you are excited about our products or videos, please tell a friend about them. We appreciate your help getting the word out.

Joseph Bjork
Good and Basic. ​

The photos are of the Belni mark 2 and mark 3 respectively.