Antique horizontal spinning wheels from Norway and Finland are popular in the USA due to their inherent beauty, large diameter wheels, and probably also due to their light weight.  Some have larger orifices than antique flax wheels found in this country so that wool can be spun on them without any alteration. 

The sustained popularity of these wheels is evident in the numerous

reproductions of their designs, such as the Kromski Polonaise. 

Rick Reeves made Norwegian half-table/ threaded screw style wheel. His Saxony models have similarities to Scandinavian wheels as well. John Rappard of NZ, maker of the Wee Peggy, also made an attractive Mitzi model patterned after the the half-table/threaded screw type Norwegian design, as did the Frank Herring Company of Dorchester, England. 

There are several styles of Norwegian wheels- - with many, many

variations - - if one counts the elegant Finnish wheel with its doubled

support posts.  What most have in common is a large wheel diameter which, generally speaking, makes for faster spinning ratios.

The type that looks like the Kromski Polonaise and some of the others mentioned above has threaded screws into the wheel supports to adjust the tracking of the drive-band on the wheel and to stabilize the wheel support posts.  In many antique wheels without this feature, time has loosened the wheel support posts.  It can be a finicky business to adjust them so the drive band stays on. The Finnish wheel has doubled wheel supports to keep the drive wheel stabilized. 

Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum was kind enough to send me photocopies of photos of all of the wheels in their collections.  Some of their wheels have dates and or provenance.  In addition the collections of the Norsk Folke Museum are online - - a fabulous resource. ( Norsk Folke Museum, Oslo,

Norway  Click on "SØK I SAMLINGENE" to enter the data base of the collection. Search under the word rokk - - which means spinning wheel.) 

Given these two resources, the horizontal wheels from Norway and Finland fell into five different types.  The half-table/threaded screw stabilized type, the steep slant table type, a heavy, nearly solid drive wheel type, the Finnish type and a few that look something like our antique New England wheels, but usually with a longer, thinner table - and which are similar in type to the Schacht/Reeves Saxony wheels.

The steep slant table probably has the most variations.  The wheel diameter is generally large, up to 28 inches.  The slant of the table in its most extreme instance can be from 45 to 60 degrees.  In that case the back legs insert into the back edge of the table and are in line with the table.  In some versions the "front" leg inserts into a location about in the middle or even in the back third of the table so that the tops of all three legs are very close together. 

Some of these wheels have threaded wheel support braces that screw into t-shaped cross bracing of the legs.  The threaded supports, in addition to stabilizing the wheel supports, would have the adjustment function to correct drive-band tracking. * Others have back braces into the legs.  Still others have both back and front braces.

The steep slant table often has decorative cut outs in the table.  Also

frequently seen are decorative "half" spokes around the rim.  Most of the "half' spokes are only about a third of the length of the functional spokes.  The decorative "half" spokes give some extra momentum to the fairly narrow rim. 

Another decorative feature is the turned finial at the top of the footman, seen on most Norwegian and Finnish wheels.  In addition there are often decorative finials on the wheel support posts of the Norwegian wheels.  The function of these may be to keep lubricants in place so that they do not soil something brushing against the wheel support. 

Decorative painting, often including a date and owner or maker's

initials - - rosemaling - - may also be a feature of these wheels. 

The antique half-table/ threaded screw stabilized type are less flamboyant in general, but just as lovely.  They seem to be unpainted or just stained or painted black or red with occasional ones with decoratively cut out table and ornamental painting.  There is less variation in wheel diameter with most being around 21 to 23 inches.** 

These wheels have either two or four turned supports for the half table and may have three or four legs.  One could speculated that Joel Farnham of Owego, NY based his design on these wheels in the early 1800's.  A variant on this wheel type in the Vesterheim collection has 24 delicate spokes and curved legs.  There are a couple of these also in the Norsk Folke Museum. 

Still another type crops up in the Norsk Folke Museum that is not seen in this country at all.  These wheels have almost solid discs of wood for the drive wheel with decorative cut outs or very short thick spokes.  These wheels seem to be associated with the Finnmark and Nordaland provinces of Northern Norway. 

Wheels from Finland or made by craftsmen of Finnish extraction in this country in the 1800's, have large diameter drive wheels which makes them fast spinners.   The rims of some of these wheels seem to be made in six sections.  Also distinctive are the doubled wheel support posts with the half-moon top that holds the drive wheel axle.  Unlike any Norwegian wheels in the collections above, some Finnish wheels have legs that insert through the treadle assembly which seems to suggest Swedish or Baltic influences.*** 

The one we own was stripped of its original paint before we purchased it, but it appears to have been a dark green or black paint.  Others are seen in combinations of ebonizing and grain painting or just ebonized or painted black in part with spokes or other parts left the lighter color of the wood. Turnings on spokes maidens, legs and finials is apt to be very ornate. 

Finnish wheels are generally very light weight as are many of the Norwegian wheels.  The ones we have had a chance to weigh are under 12 lbs.  Rims on most of these wheel are narrow.

Some of the difference in weight is design and some of it is due to the type of wood used.  Heavy, dense woods such as maple and oak are used in North American wheels, whereas softwoods are more common in Norwegian and Finnish wheels.**** 

Sometimes one encounters hybrid between styles.  Two wheels from the collection of the Norsk Folke Museum have both the doubled wheel supports seen in the wheels from Finland as well as the half-table/ threaded screw.  One of them was from the south-eastern part of Norway, next to the border with Sweden.

A wheel offered for sale on eBay, had been purchased in Tallinn, Estonia. It shows strong similarities to Finnish wheels, but the overall impression is one of a sturdier, but no less ornamental style of turnings. 

As indicated above, there is often no indication of whether the wheel was made in this country or if it was brought here by immigrants or came over in a container a couple of years ago.  None of this matters to most of who just love the wheels for their beauty and excellent design.

* Laura Gustafson in the Spinning Wheel Sleuth XIV 

** The Vesterheim collection has one wheel of this type with a 17 inch

diameter wheel. 

***  Finnish wheel in Spinning and Spinning Wheels, by Eliza Leadbeater, p. 13; Ulster Museum, Horner Collection, fig. 31.

**** Canadian production wheel, 20 lbs; antique Londonderry NH wheel, 16 lbs; Shaker wheel, 12 lbs; antique Finnish wheel, 11 ½ lbs;  Reeves-like antique Scandinavian wheel, 11 lbs ( weights are approximate). 

REFERENCES:

A Book of Spinning Wheels, Joan Whittaker Cummer, Randall, Portsmouth, 1993

How to be owned by an antique spinning wheel, Peter Fowler, 2nd Ed., Unicorn Books and Crafts, Petaluma, CA 2003

Spinning Wheels , Spinners & Spinning, Patricia Baines. Anchor Press Ltd., London 1982 

Spinning and Spinning Wheels, Eliza Leadbeater, Shire Publications , Bucks, UK 1985 

Spinning Wheels, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1969 

Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum, Decorah, IA

Norsk Folke Museum, Oslo, Norway Press "SØK I SAMLINGENE" to enter the data base of the collection, and you can search for the spinning wheels, - the name in Norwegian is rokk.