Hello,

I recently purchased a new 16 harness Ashford table loom.  My other loom is a Leclerc Dorothy, so the texsolv heddles and tie-up chords are new to me.  For the most part, the set up was very straight forward, but I had some trouble tying up the harnesses.  The diagram shows that the last harness raises more than the first, with all the ones in between stepping up gradually.  My back ones raise more than the ones in front, but the stepping is kind of messy and not very exact, despite working for hours on it.  I am not looking forward to ever adding/removing heddles from my frames, because the tie-up is such a nightmare and I'll need to do it all again if I ever remove the harnesses.  Does anyone have a good technique for doing this?  How exact does it need to be?

Thank you!

Comments

ALFV85

Hi woolybat,

I have a 16 Harness Ashford table loom that I purchased new and set up myself.  I, like you, spent a lot of time trying to set up the harnesses at the right heights stepping up.  I found that when I finally tried weaving on the loom a few times under tension, it became apparent which shafts still needed to be adjusted from the way the shed opened.  I had a couple of harnesses that were still too low and catching threads as I passed the shuttle through the shed.  From there it was just a few more straightforward adjustments and then all was set.  It turned out not to be as precise as I was trying to make it. Once I got it to where I liked the shed under tension, I haven't had to redo it.

As for moving around heddles, I bought enough so that I rarely have to move any -- certainly not on all 16 shafts.  Every so often I will have to move heddles among 2 or 3 shafts.  When I do that, I do not remove all of the shafts at once.  Just one at a time.  When I remove the shaft I can see in the texsolv where the shaft needs to go back in.  The texsolv holes that the shafts came out of are a little wider open than the others, and I can put them right back in the same place.  You could also put some sort of color or marker on the exact loop that the shaft came from if you wish.

Hope this helps.  I've really liked my Ashford loom.

woolybat

Hi ALFV85,

That helps so much! It is a absolutely gorgeous loom, and I am very excited about getting to know it.  Hearing your experience makes me more confident about the set-up-- you never know when you are going about something by yourself how it should (or will) turn out, so it makes a big difference to talk to somebody.  I'll keep an eye out for an uneven shed the first time I weave.  Were you able to easily adjust the necessary harnesses while it was warped?

Great idea about marking the chords!

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