Occasionally, when I am weaving along on my 16S AVL compudobby, a shaft will come off its hook on one side, causing that half of the shaft to fall. Does anyone have any idea of why this might happen and/or what I can do to avoid it?

TIA
Jennifer 

Comments

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 15:29

tien (not verified)

My AVL Workshop Dobby Loom has heat-shrink tubing over the cables, extending very slightly down over the hooks (put on by the previous owner).  This prevents the hooks from flying off, and reduces the incidence of cables catching on things, but does make it more difficult to remove the the shaft from the cable.  I think it's worth it, you might want to give it a try.

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 18:36

laurafry

Check to see if the heddles are misaligned or hung up in some way.  On my PDL if the heddles are one the 'wrong' side of the hook on the bottom that will cause the shaft to list to one side and when it comes back down it can catch on another shaft or even the side of the loom causing slack in the cable at which point the cable can slip off the hook on the top.

Cheers,

Laura

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 19:16

jordanj (not verified)

Thanks to both for your suggestions. Laura, I do periodically push the extra heddles on the ends of the shafts (there are not very many) towards the center as I know this has caused problems in the past. This time this was not the issue - I need to do some more problem solving and the shrink tubing sounds like a good idea.

 

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 19:45

laurafry

Yes, that will help prevent the cables from jumping off, but it would still be a good idea to find out why the slack is happening to allow it....the other thing to check is the chain/springs under the shafts.  Sometimes they can grab on to each other.  Some shrink wrap on them can help with that problem, too.

Cheers,

Laura

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 20:18

jordanj (not verified)

Good point, Laura. I'll check that out too.

 

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 21:38

jordanj (not verified)

Laura, you were right, one of the bottom chains was hooked to a heddle, thus the shaft wasn't seated correctly. I will have to think about putting shrink tubing on those chains because it might make it hard to add/remove heddles. For now, I'll just add to check those chains as I do my visual loom check when I wind perns.

Which brings me to another question.... is there a trick to being "notified" when the pirn runs out of yarn? Other than just plain old paying attention? I guess I tend to do a bit of zoning out when I get into the rhythm only to find that there is no yarn and then I have to reverse to find where I left off.... sigh... I seem to be learning to weave by traveling down the road of making all possible mistakes!

Thu, 09/02/2010 - 22:01

laurafry

Heh - that's how most of us learn!  :D

Paying attention is the only way that I know of. I tend to zone out too, but somehow I manage to get into the rhythm of how long a 'standard' pirn will last and will start watching.

The other thing you can do is colour code the pirn.  I have both yellow and black pirns.  Since I weave with a lot of black weft, I put a piece of masking tape at the butt end of the black ones and then I try to put that area 'up' so that I can see the tape when it starts to show.

cheers,

Laura

Group Audience
AVL