I have a wonderful, old, handmade 4H counterbalance loom.  I just love weaving on it.  A few years ago I did manage to figure out how to coax it to do unbalanced weaves, but I don't get as large a shed as when I do balanced weaves.  My son has now moved back to this area.  He's exceedingly clever, but knows nothing about looms.  I'm positive he'd make me a shed regulator if we could find (a) plans, (b) a video showing one in operation, or (c) more clarity than I get on the LeClerc site or the Camilla Valley site about how they work.

Does anyone have plans, or at least more detailed info about shed regulator construction and use?

Thanks!

Comments

Sun, 04/03/2011 - 10:25

kerstinfroberg

Question: I have always wondered why some ppl (americans?) have problems with unbalanced sheds on CB looms?

Here in Sweden nobody has problems with that (that I know of, of course). I have never seen it mentioned in (Swe) books - to the contrary, many books, both older and newer, are full of patterns with unbalanced sheds. The most "typical" upholstery cloth is woven in 1/3 twill (or should that be 3/1, I can never remember if the first figure is up or down).

Swedish CB looms have, from the top down, a pulley. Over the pulley is a string (nowadays usually texsolv) that connects two horses. Each end of the horse connects to one shaft. Two pictures from The big book of weaving (there was no overview pic showing both pulley and horses for 4-shafts):

We are always suggested to weave the 3/1 twills with 3 up and one down "because  the treadling is lighter" (not that I really notice any difference) and, for a weft-face cloth just turn it over when cut off.

Is the loom construction different in your parts?

Sun, 04/03/2011 - 11:54

peg.cherre (not verified)

Thanks for the insight, Kerstin.  My counterbalance loom, and the ones I've seen here in the States (I admit not many) doesn't have horses, but 3 roller bars.  And no pulleys, instead cord (now Texsolv) wrapped around the roller bars.

Plus I should clarify that I have done many unbalanced weaves on my counterbalance, I just thought perhaps it'd be easier with a shed regulator.

my counterbalance

Sun, 04/03/2011 - 17:37

Sara von Tresckow

Just FYI - there have been many counterbalance looms in the US with the horses - they were usually the older ones not sold new any more. The "horse" is not something foreign - just something that has fallen out of use.

Tue, 04/03/2018 - 15:57

sarafigal

Did anyone ever come up with a good set of plans or a hack for a shed regulator?

Mon, 05/13/2019 - 03:33

scole4567

At   www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/zmw_  01_6.pdf,  zmw_10_4.pdf,  zmw_56_4.pdf .  The other way to look at them is www2.cs.arizona.edu/ patterns/weaving   at left of page  click Articles, then M for Master Weaver, then scroll down to shed regulator.  There are 3 articles, obviously, but you can read whatever else he might have shared.  Mr. S.A. Zielinski wrote 22 volumes of a weaving encyclopedia & if you belong to a weaving guild, you might be able to borrow  the first 6 books, which are A Treasury for Beginners .  

I can take some photos of my lash up, but it doesn't work too well, yet.  I just read that the off-set is 1" to 1.5" from center.  I think more modifications on my loom are necesary.  My loom was a 4 harness table loom until my husband modified it to a floor loom with 6 pedals.  

 

Wed, 04/04/2018 - 14:29

sandra.eberhar…

I was looking for one when I was going to do honeycomb on my rug loom.  I found a used one,but it had been sold.  The reason she sold it was because it didn't work very well, and didn't really improve the shed in an unbalanced tie up.  I did weave several yards of honeycomb uhpolstery material.  The unbalanced sheds were not as large, and I had to use a smaller shuttle.

Mon, 04/09/2018 - 21:18

Matthijs

The assembly instructions for the Nilus II contain someclear drawings of the mechanism. This should be sufficient do build your own.

http://www.leclerclooms.com/draw_inst/NUIICB.pdf

The drawing on page 18 shows the mechanism from the backside of the loom.