Gandhi's Spinning Wheel X-Prize (The Ambar Charkha)
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- Опубликовано: 12 дек 2024
- In which JB geeks out about the history and insane potential of the ambar charkha.
Old ministry footage of the ambar charkha in action: archive.org/de...
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This chakra could be an element of the “150 Mile Wardrobe,” communities learning how to create their textile needs from within 150 miles. This means fiber growers, mini wool and cotton mills, localized spinning collectives, and village weavers. People making their own clothes and shoes. This is how we cut down on the carbon footprint of our necessities. This also includes upcycling used clothing, ala the Japanese ethic of Boro Mottanai, which creates beauty and durability out of rags. Remember how our grandmothers made patchwork quilts. Taking all this to the next RELOCALIZED level. Yay!
Very nice idea...
And just add a motor to it and voila... local mill in our own house! Amazing potential...
heck, theoretically you could hook it up to some sort of small windmill? have it power the charkha directly, rather than go thru the electrical generation phase
This sort of synthesis is my favorite part about your channel! Thank you! Also, if you haven't already you should read Kropotkin. Starting to notice a lot of your ideas and discussions about personal/communal liberation resonate with passages I remember from The Conquest of Bread
I've got that recommendation a couple times now. Will have to check that one out. JB
What a beautiful idea! I actually found your Etsy shop long before finding you here on RUclips today. You sir have a beautiful dream!
Bless you! Thanks for watching! I'm hoping to revisit this project soon.
@@GoodandBasic I saw on another video that you're working on a floor loom! I can't tell you how much I appreciate that your 3d files are free. It shows your dream touches all aspects of your projects!
I may try to combine your spinning wheel with your Charkha spindle instead of the flier. I'm also interested in adding a pulley system and a stand to your rigid heddle loom, so it can be used to make fabric with patterns! If I'm successful, I'll share the information with you so you can add it your files and etsy shop.
@rocki_bb that sounds awesome! Best of luck with the project!
@@GoodandBasic thank you so much!
I don't know if you saw my other comments on your videos, but look up the Rose Engine. It's a specialized lathe that suddenly made items that only kings and queens could afford into items that people who were not nobility could purchase. It made it possible for artisans to produce an item that had once taken years, in months or weeks. A rose engine was used in making the Faberge Eggs, and was originally powered by a treadle.
Even if you aren't interested in making/designing one, I'm sure you'll find it as amazing as I do. I understand it doesn't provide a necessity the way spinning and weaving does, but it could open doors for artists that might be closed otherwise.
@rocki_bb I'll have to look that up! Thanks for the tip!
This is a wonderful Idea! If you can combine it with a treadle or pedal power, so I can just sit comfortably and spin. this leaves my hands free to fix anything that might go wrong and the foot power will spin this much faster than a hand crank.
PLEASE, Keep me informed!
Hit that bell icon. 🔔 JB
@@GoodandBasic Already did. Been subscribed since you first tried making Steel
@@zer0m0stel thanks! JB
Pedal operated one os already there in the charka museum in Rajghat, Delhi and also in maghan snaghralaya museum in wardha
Thank you. Never seen an Amber Charkha before! I have and use a book charkha, spinning wheels, weaving looms, grow a few cotton bushes to experiment with but mainly use alpaca or wool for my textile work since I can grow them easily on the farm :) Keen to see how you go with the 3D printing.
"He who spins before the poor, inviting them to do likewise, serves God as no one else does." - Gandhi
Hello. Just found your video today. I have also been researching on charkha. I think its a wonderful machine. Bringing production locally empowers the people. Whether it is hand cranked or solar powered, it should remain true to its concept. It should also be be build locally by the people. I got into 3d printing because i am into spinning and weaving natural cotton fiber. So far, i have only printed a drop spindle and boat shuttle. I am also hoping to print my ambar charkha some day. I also think 3d printer is another industrial revolution bringing manufacturing capability to home scale. Looking forward for more of your videos. Thank you.
Probably part of the hand-crank allure is deeper; I would assume it's more an Amish-style desire to be able to create the machines at home too. But agreed that could be modernized with 3d printing. Solar panels are a little tricky because we can't yet make them locally, but perhaps having the quality of an adapter for manual or electric would alleviate the concern.
For additional reference to your ambar charkha project.
ruclips.net/video/sw9ixRT2AbA/видео.html
I find manually carding cotton (using a pair of carder) the most tedious task in hand spinning. I think having a sliver or roving machine is great addition to cottage industry. But i don't think it can remove debris frpm the fiber.
Thank you! I just ran into this. Do you know what the tool is called?
@@GoodandBasic this is a hand crank version of some basic industrial revolution top/roving processing tools. This is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been looking for at that sort of size scale to make individual cottage milling for oneself possible I need to contact you on your Etsy shop anyway, I’ll try to find the turn of 19th century patents I came across at one point during my searches on noble combing.
I've been missing your videos because I forgot to click the bell. I fully agree and this is something I've been focussing on for years. Decentralised manufacturing is the next big step humanity needs to take, give it a few years and we will be able to download a car.
3D printing, CNC mills and a few other devices have gotten so cheap now that pretty much anyone can have a home toolshop capable of making almost anything mechanical. Clothes are another step, but not a huge one. I think medical care is going to be a huge hurdle, and it'll be a much bigger one because of how entrenched the pharmaceutical industry is with IP laws and the healthcare service industry with professional monopolies.
Take those away and centralised production/services will die a hard death.
Child labour is a non-issue in my view. It's something that will only happen wherever an economy is poor enough that adults cannot feed a full family of children up to the age of 18. The moment they can child labour ends. In an economy where it's a necessity it's unavoidable and cannot be prevented by passing laws. The solution is simple: Industrialise the economy to the point where it's unnecessary.
Regarding your specific step of 3D printing the ambar charkha... I'd refer you to the experience of the reprap community. Their initial goal was to make a 3D printer that could print itself. But along the way they realised that certain parts were just easier and cheaper to buy premade, like supporting rods and hot-ends. I think you should adopt the same approach: 3D print the parts that aren't available off the shelf (like certain portions of the chassis, or thread guides) and use widely available off the shelf parts (like gears and rods) where appropriate.
I'd also like to suggest maybe focussing on another fiber other than cotton. Cotton has a quite limited growing range, it's only really feasible in warm regions with plenty of water. Anywhere with frost or scant supplies of water would have difficulty. A better option might be flax or even wool (depending on if you're trying to make it vegan or not). Sheep can graze damn near anywhere and produce all the fiber you could want. The processing steps required are similar.
My fiber of choice has been milkweed and nettle bast fiber, but the technical extraction issues add another layer of complication. I like that they grow as weeds though. JB
@@GoodandBasic How efficient are they compared to something like flax? I always assumed they'd be a niche thing because I never heard of them being used historically.
Nettles have a very long history of use in Europe. Most recently during the world wars Germany used them for wartime manufacturing since Britain controlled the world cotton supply. They're more difficult to extract, but the fiber quality is superb.
The US, also during WW2, experimented quite a bit with milkweed, which has a shockingly strong fiber. The plant was heartily endorsed by the researchers, but development stopped when cheap fiber again became available after the war. JB
@@GoodandBasic Interesting, thanks, I thought it was a completely new thing. As you say it grows on otherwise poor soil so it might be a really useful addition to a homestead's supply chain.
And if people start breeding them we might end up with cultivars that sting less and produce more fiber.
I would love to help! I’m not great at designing, but I can see what I can do.
Informative and interesting as always
Thanks! JB
I think the parallel here isn’t necessarily in making thread at home but making filament. We need an automated spinning wheel of filament.
Very interesting idea indeed (I'll get in touch)
I am completely interested. I am a weaver and spinner. I work mostly in wool. I don't know how I could help, but I would love to!
To the hand crank point, or powered by solar... for them you added a new problem how to power it locally, as making solar panels that provide a dense enough power output isn't easy.
But they do have lots of roof space for the time being.
That would be cool to have made
i want to build a wide loom from an old grill awning that isn't being used... i hope to increase cotton yarn production and my brain says 'go go go!' i've seen women using paddles to hold poonis. I'm thinking i can spin two rovings on a paddle with two separate spindles on my frankenbike charkha. I'm all about reusing and/or 'upcycling'. trash/treasure. It would instantly double my production...
For the contrary view on the politics of the charkha, see cscs.res.in/dataarchive/textfiles/textfile.2008-03-25.5189546146/file
Tagore claimed that the symbol swallowed the thing it symbolized - and in large measure, he was right. The charkha is today more a religious totem than a tool.
Thank you. I've suspected something similar from my reading, and I appreciate the resource. India struggles horrifically with sanitation, a choking bureaucracy, and some of the lowest economic freedom in the world. However, the idea of using improvements in intermediate technology to boost local self reliance is one I find intoxicating. JB
I love mormons.
Heres an idea for alternate sources of energy:
Gravity powered escapement wheel:
ruclips.net/video/UEE9vOwx0is/видео.html
I was wondering if we can connect a home-made generator to it and make electricity with it...
Could you try this project? Please... 😊
I want to know you!!
Sounds like it's time to travel to india and get one of these and reverse engineer it lol
Indeed. Or have one shipped over here. JB
I was thinking the same thing
The problem with all of this is that it’s completely uneconomic both in terms of making sense from an economic standpoint but also in terms of violating the concept of division of labor efficiency. Just as it makes no sense for each person to build her own car it doesn’t really make sense for people to make their own clothes. It has to be heavily subsidized to be even superficially viable which means it takes money from one section of the economy and inefficiently forces it into another section of the economy. Therefore it drags down the sections of the economy that are more inherently successful etc. We all know that free trade has dragged over 1 billion people out of povertyIn the last 40 years, mostly in China and India. This technology although super cool represents the antithesis of that progress. Does it really matter if people make their own clothes if it means that they are overall much poorer than they would’ve been under other circumstances?
While all your points are true, the true nature of wealth is subjective. People PAY to make their own clothes as a luxury activity in the west. When you consider the hobby/personal satisfaction side of the equation, any increase in efficiency is a clear economic gain. This is an activity people, who don't have to do it to provide their own clothing, are already doing because they enjoy the process. JB
Are you sure it makes no sense for each person to build their own car?
While companies & factories may have some role to play, making them the main players in the economy seems a bad idea to me because
a) they are purely motivated by profits and dont care for any other issues (like exploitation or safety).
b) they get in bed with govts and bend the rules or break the rules or stop the rules from being made (corruption & nepotism).
c) corporations have very little competition and gain monopoly. Then, they rule like East India company exploited India.
Its not true that free trade reduced poverty.
a) China & India suffered foreign occupation & brutal exploitation. They are just slowly coming out of the foreign occupation affects slowly from the time of their independence.
b) India and China have always been rich countries in human history. So, them being poor is anamoly. Them being moderately rich is the norm.
c) Free trade is not even followed in India & China. There is heavy govt regulation in India and China.
I think there are 3 factors that need balancing:
a) corporations
b) Govts
c) common people.
Right now, common people have been reduced to just being consumers (clients) & workers of corporations. In the present model, corporations wield too much power and common people have no power. Local manufacturing techs can help allievate this scenario by allowing common people to compete with corporations. And competition will allow corporations also to be more concious of safety and quality.
That is where specialties came into it as it was easier/better to have another make it but you also did the same for them in return doing another thing. Hence trading.
But knowing how to do everything or know the concepts is never a bad thing.
Do you have an engineering degree?
No, my degrees are in English and law. JB
I'm not sure how much this will help, but I found an image on wikimedia commons with labels in what Google translate calls Marathi and numbers for the gear teeth/size.
commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Structure_of_Amber_Charkha.jpg
This is awesome! Thanks! JB
Appreciate this very much, hope there is a version in English. But i will try google if it can translate it. Thanks.