Hello everyone,

I am seriously trying to conquer my fear of my drawloom! I have thought I was ready and then chickened out several times. I have actually started winding a warp, but need to get over the final hurdle (the one that has defeated me each time), damask pulleys or countermarche system?

I plan to use a 4 shaft ground and have already turned my vertical jacks upside down and redone them to work with the drawloom attachment. I have watched Becky Ashden's video Dress Your Swedish Drawloom. I do not have the first video as $50.00 seems a lot of money for skills I already have, the only thing that would be new to me in teh video would be the damask pulleys. It seems in the video that Becky is actually using the vertical countermarche, but seem to remember several sources referring to it being better to start with the damask pulleys, elastics, etc.

So I'm open to the wisdom of this group to help me buck up, make this decision and get going!

Thanks so much,

Erica

Comments

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 20:33

Sara von Tresckow

Damask pulleys work for any even ground - even number of shafts. If you ever intend to work in 5-end satin, a staple of damask weaving, you'll need to use countermarche.

Why are you nervous about a countermarche tie for damask? You need only one rising tie and one sinking tie, the other shafts are held in place by weights or elastics. This is the easiest way to use a countermarche loom, and you only need to set up the loom once. If you mount the pulleys, they'll work until you do an odd number of shafts in the ground weave and will then need to rebuild the loom to go countermarche.

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 20:38

Erica

Thanks Sara, I would prefer to just use the countermarche. I just can't find any clear instructions for how the countermarche for the drawloom differs from the normal configuration.

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 20:42

Erica

In re reading your response and thinking back to our visit this summer, I think it has all clicked!!! The ground shafts can hang elastics to allow each treadle to only raise one shaft and lower one shaft. The difference being with the drawloom tie up each treadle only operates 2 shafts not all the shafts.

Am I making sense? Am I correct?!

Sun, 12/01/2013 - 00:25

Sara von Tresckow

Yes - look at the book from Lillemor - it has the clearest pictures of the shafts in "neutral".

Basically, counterweights or elastics support the shafts when at rest. A treadle moves 1 shaft up and 1 shaft down - and the weighting system holds the others where they are.

You have, at this point, raised whole units from the ground, so for the warp effect you need lower only a single thread. Same for the ground areas - you are lifting only 1 thread to create the weft effect.

Sun, 12/01/2013 - 03:31

Dawn McCarthy

The nice thing about the pulley tie up is the one set of lams, I use both Cm & CB.  Both are quickly changed

 

Dawn

Sun, 12/01/2013 - 15:46

cottageweaver (not verified)

Either one will work fine.  I used damask pulleys for 4-shaft broken twill on my last drawloom warp. (See My Projects).  I had no problem with the pulleys on my 100 cm Ideal.  The pulleys were slightly canted since there wasn't quite enough room for them to hang straight.  This caused no problem at all since the pulley cords moved freely.   I used the shorter pulleys for that project, since I needed the longer ones on my Standard for rep weaving.

Sun, 12/01/2013 - 16:30

Erica

Thank you all for your help! If I had completely watched the video, I would have seen Becky's explanation! :)