Yarn Ball Winder, Hand-Operated Yarn Ball Winder Swift Yarn Winder

I bought the wrong thing I needed a cone winder and I bought this not what I need so I think I will put a ball of butchers twine on it and leave it in my kitchen.

I'm just now using it for the first time and it's just okay. I don't know if mine was used because the box came without instructions and was pretty beat up. The cylinder is a little scratched up as well. Sometimes the gears stick (but only when there is yarn on the cylinder, which is weird) and then the yarn falls out of place on the cake and makes me lose my rhythm and messes up the cake. Maybe it's just the specific yarn I used, which is on the thinner side. I'm just happy I can finally wind up my messy yarn stash. The base is made out of metal and is fairly heavy. Very sturdy and well made.

Been looking for a yarn winder for ages but needed to find something suitable/built to last within a certain price range. Wound maybe 30 skeins of cotton/wool yarns over a the last couple weeks since purchasing, works great! Since the gears are metal it does make noise when operating but it's not offensive or overly loud. Finishing on the parts is decent overall but not perfect, the plastic bits did have a couple marks but nothing that affected usability. Unit is sturdy and operates pretty smoothly, though I did make a point to break it in a bit (lubricated the gears and wound it "empty" for about 20 minutes to help smooth any rough edges out). After messing about a bit I found that I like to gently ground my fingers on metal loop so it doesn't bounce around too much while loosely guiding the yarn off the swift (make sure the arm groove is seated ON the bump when tightening the wing nut or it will not work as well). You really do not want to apply too much tension on the yarn, it'll mess with the cake formation. Let the shuttle arm do the work, it'll flow best when doing its own thing. Once it gets going I found it's best to maintain moderate to fast speed; it really works best when moving quickly. If I I have stop because of a knot in the yarn it's a bit of a pain to get going again, but honestly I think that would be the case with any winder. For the time being this suits my needs very well, worth the cost if you're tired of winding skeins my hand.

LOVE: The item was easy to put together. And when you get it going and working correctly, it's pretty good at what it does. I can get a LOT of yarn cakes completed in a couple of hours.HATE: The handle on the clamp is so short, it's difficult to get the thing to stay on surfaces while in use - it tries to turn as the handle is turned. The plastic yarn holder also comes off during use every so often, due to the movement involved in wrapping yarn. And don't even get me started on the metal arm that holds the yarn up! It's attached with a wingnut and I can't get it to stay on, and it's above the level of the working surface, so it bangs up and down and moves side to side as the yarn is wound. If you don't stabilize it with something, it will tangle its yarn with that of the wrapping arm, and just make a big old mess - this last time, I ended up wedging a package of chewing gum underneath it! I find this machine super-irritating to use because of these issues. I usually do five or six skeins at once, and it is just constant stopping to readjust.In summary, when it gets going, it works reasonably well, but it's going to take a LOT to keep it going! I'm keeping it - but it's the piece of equipment I'm most likely to shoot dirty looks at in passing.

Would have been nice if they included assembly instructions, but using the photos we got it together okay. Wife loves it, uses it a lot, far better then her old winder. She can wind a full yarn skein at once. But warning for husband's who attach it to a table in the living room, the metal gears are really loud, can't hear the TV over it when she's winding the yarn, but at least she loved her Christmas gift.

The winder didn't come with any instructions whatsoever. I was able to use common sense and the picture from the seller add to figure it out. There really wasn't very much assembly though. My first issue came immediately when I started to use it. Every time I would turn the crank the yarn would just end up doubling up and wrapping around the top of the bobbin instead of making the full 360 revolution. After a while of trying to figure what I was doing wrong, I have been able to deduce from YouTube and elsewhere, this is a common problem with the knock off Stanwoods. I assume it is an issue of a misaligned spinny wooshy thing and the other yarn feeder bar isn't bent at the right angle. I have yet to be able to wind a full skein from start to finish without having to stop multiple times and try to convince it to cooperate. It is great when it is working but that is only in intermittent bursts when it wants to.

It isn't quiet but it works. I have had a lot of yarn I needed to pack and this was the best way to make for me. Nice cakes and I like that I can make them large cakes.. who wants a lot of small ones..

It would have been nice if they had been included with the product. Common sense told me that if I was screwing metal parts onto my wooden table that I should place padding between wood and metal. I threaded the winder as shown and wound several skeins without any difficulty.