I just acquired this Lillstina a couple weeks ago. Since there is not very much info online about Lillstinas, I thought I would post some about my own experience with this loom.
This loom was stored for many years, unused and it was quite dirty, with dead spiders(!) and a bit of rust on both back beams and a few spots here and there. Both reeds that came with the loom are rusty, and I am in the process of cleaning them now. I have a 30” reed from another loom in place for the test project.
STRING HEDDLES:
I considered discarding all the string heddles in favor of buying new texsolv heddles, but since it would have cost a fair chunk of change to do that, I decided to try and salvage the string heddles if possible.
I tied all the string heddles together at the top and bottom with scrap yarn, before removing them from the shafts to be washed. I soaked each group from each shaft in cool water, mixed with a few drops of dish soap. I swished and squeezed them periodically, then rinsed them well. Next I soaked them in a mixture of cool water with a little Downey fabric softener, in an effort to possibly re-hydrate them. It seems to have worked.
THE WOOD:
I removed the castle and shafts, and went over the whole frame with a damp cloth, first to remove the dirt and grime, then went over everything again with Danish oil. It worked like magic and restored the wood to a beautiful glow! I cleaned the castle the same way, but did not put any finish on the wooden shafts.
METAL AND STEEL PARTS:
The beams and other metal parts were rough, oxidized and had areas of rust. I sanded the areas as needed, then painted 2 coats of Tremclad in ‘aluminum’ color. They look fantastic!
CORDS & TIE UPS:
I removed the nylon cords from the front and back beams and washed them. I removed and discarded all the old dirty and very dried out cords that connected the horses, shafts, lams and treadles, and replaced all with texsolv cording, pegs and anchors.
More photos and info to follow…
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…I just added a few more pics of the back side of the loom. The lower back beam is somewhat unique to this loom from what I’ve read. One pic shows the warp going under this lower beam. I basically followed the online Lillstina manual recommendations when I wound the warp on. It said to move the lease sticks below the back beam once weaving has begun, so they wouldn’t interfere with the shed. The string heddles don’t slide as easily on the wood shafts as metal heddles on metal shafts do, so I thought it would be a bit of a chore to get them spread out evenly, but I didn’t have to move them at all – they spread out all on their own once everything was tied on.
Once I have woven this warp off, I will go back and measure all the various texsolv cords for the different parts, and post a list of measurements, so anyone wanting to switch over to texsolv will not have to reinvent the wheel!
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