Woodworker: Arnold Geiger

Arnold Geiger lets the spinning wheel turn. With 30 years of experience in woodworking, it's the last three that have set wheels in motion for him. That's when his wife asked him to make a spinning wheel. They've been his passion ever since.

His technique for making a round wheel from square boards is inspired by the sea. He uses the same laminating techniques employed to make a ship's wheel. After layering the wood, the wheel goes to the lathe, where Geiger turns and carves it into a perfect circle.

History Nuggets

• A spinning wheel is used to turn fiber into thread or yarn. Although its exact origins cannot be traced, it is believed that the spinning wheel was invented in India.
  
  
• By the Middle Ages, the spinning wheel was in use in Europe. Early versions still required the user to hold the distaff*, but later models incorporated the distaff, freeing the operator's hands.

* distaff--a staff that holds on its cleft end the unspun flax, wool, or tow from which thread is drawn in spinning by hand.