The efficiency of the spindle harvester is determined by the activity of the spindle teeth located on the drums. The well-known M V Sablikov theory of cotton harvesting technology says that the capability of capturing cotton by the spindle depends on the correspondence between the directions of the tip and the speed vector of the tooth point. The article is devoted to the development of an analytical method for determining the active component of the absolute velocity of the tooth point of the spindle in the working chamber of the picking apparatus. The method is characterized by studying the orientation of the absolute velocity vector relative to the tangent to the circle of the section and the bisector of the spindle tooth wedge angle. Having located the centers of the coordinate axes along the tangent and the bisector at the tooth point, the oblique directing angles of the velocity vector were determined, and its active component was calculated. Graphs of changes in velocity during the time the spindle was in the working chamber were plotted, and an assessment was made of the capability of cotton capturing by the working body.