So I was putting together my mother’s weaving loom, and came across this awesome gadget (looms are great from a low tech engineering point of view!)

This one collection of bits had us baffled. But I could guess how it went together. Then I played around with it a bit and realised it’s actually brilliant!

I’ve attached a super detailed CAD drawing.

It’s essentially a ratchet mechanism. There is a wooden pulley (about 200 mm diam) which has a steel wire wrapped around it. One end of the wire is fixed, the other basically has a spring attached.

As drawn it can rotate clockwise, but not anticlockwise! By releasing tension on the spring it will rotate either way.

I don’t know how it’s useful (boat wise) but I was so impressed by how well it works!

This is basically a wrap spring clutch, a totally awesome bur rarely seen little mechanism, thanks for reminding me of one of my first ‘problems’ I was asked to fix as an engineer

There are no problems only Opportunities and Solutions

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