In article ,
"N_Cook" wrote:

The spool must be wound in a radial sense at manufacture, so I assumed it
was best to take it off radially.
If mounted vertically and pulled off vertically then its not just the
uppermost take-off rubbing against the spool end but at the lower end, on
every other layer, you are pulling against the remaining lay of wire.

My method is not ideal , hence this thread. I chose mounting vertically and
pulling off horizontally for minimum pull off variable tension.
Mounting the spool on a pair of good quality ball races and then adding an
ex-VCR slip clutch pair over the top. One runs with the spool and the other
sprung tied back to frame and small weight added to activate the
braking/slip.
That works very well but it leaves the problem of variable lay pull-off
tension from the spool at these small wire gauges.

I see I have to probably increase to 3 slip/brakes. Existing exVCR slip with
very little weight , little more than a brake, and the main back-tension
governed by a mix of your felted clothes pegs and lightly sprung felted
discs, separated as far apart as practical to employ inherent slight
stretching in the wire, to even things out, as well as my existing dancer
arm and pulley.

Another minor problem is the final small pulley that delivers the wire to
the bobbin. Plenty of pulleys with good quality bearings salvaged from kit.
But they all the good quality ones have a groove at the join of the V of the
pulley, just the thickness of this wire, so useless for this purpose. I
assume as they are for rubber drive band use it is something to do with air
being trapped between pulley and rubber if no such groove. I may swap to
just a small piece of PTFE with a groove in it , extended on a moveable rod,
instead of a pulley for final delivery.

I'm not quite following your last paragraph, here. Why are the good
quality guide pulleys useless? Isn't the guide groove just what you
want? Sounds like what we have at the bobbin end. What do you mean by
them being for rubber drive band use?

BTW, how are you handling the traverse motion to lay the wire neatly
along the bobbin's length?