HAving bought an old loom - without any heddles - how do you decide what heddles to use and what size? Its obviously less than the width of the loom but do you go for the maximum width possible, or are there any other factors to take into consideration?

Thanks

Paul

Comments

Sat, 11/26/2011 - 03:56

laurafry

Are you talking about rigid heddles or individual heddles?  If individual, then you need to think about how many ends per inch you might routinely weave, multiplied by the weaving width of the loom divided by how many shafts your loom has.

For instance if you think you'll probably never do more than 24 epi and your loom has four shafts and a 36 inch weaving width, then 24 x 36 = 864 divided by 4 (shafts) you'll need at least 216 per shaft.  To be on the safe side, I'd get at least 1000 and begin with 250 per shaft.  But like i say, it depends.

To figure out the weaving width of your loom you need to measure inside the loom uprights and then subtract an inch on each side for clearance of the shafts.

Does your loom have shafts or is it missing those as well?  If it is a Scandinavian type counter balanced loom, there are books that will show how to make shafts and mount them in the loom.  Laila Lundell's Big Book of Weaving is one.  Joanne Hall (Glimakra USA) probably has info on her website as well.

cheers,

Laura

Sat, 11/26/2011 - 22:10

paulz

I am only used to heddles in shafts (I haven't done much weaving and think that's what theyre called.

This loom doesn't seem to have any equivalents. I was wondering about trying the shafts from my weavemaster loom to see what happens. ALl I have found so far are some pulley things with kinda like elongated C's.

There is a beater that hangs suspended from the side bars - and there are a couple of pegs on the top bar as well but aren't sure what they're for.

I guess I'm trying to say I'm stuck at what to do but will look for books to see what to do next. Thanks

Paul

Sat, 11/26/2011 - 22:19

paulz

Not sure about what to do with getting these. It seems my tension is something I am struggling with at the moment. NOw I have to look at the tension and that of making string heddles?. WIll have to give that some thought but would explain why I got so much funny type string (no use anyway as had been eate/nested in my mice)

Paul

Sat, 11/26/2011 - 23:21

laurafry

Unfortunately I can't get the picture to pop up to a larger size so that I can actually see it.  Do you have pictures posted elsewhere that I could look at?

cheers,

Laura

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 00:35

paulz

I am just getting used to uploading to this site and have tried again with the medium size. Trouble is the original was taken with a 4MB resolution and obviously takes a lot of space.

These are the three on the rhs as seen looking at the loom and the lhs three are in the background on the other side. The beam on the rhs of the pegs should go through the hole but I only put it up rougly to see what's what. Obviously the lhs is the swinging beater (as I call it)

Thanks

Paul

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 02:47

laurafry

Okay - I understand now.  Yes, the loom has a hanging beater - it looks like a fairly typical Scandinavian type loom.  I'd go to the Glimakra website and see what Joanne has posted for photos.  I'm not sure what the pegs would be for - the beater rests in the notches as shown.  

Since it is that type of loom, it usually came with string heddles.  You can tie your own using a jig or buy TexSolv heddles.  Generally heddles were tied using seine twine or other sturdy cord.

cheers,

Laura

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 10:59

kerstinfroberg

As Laura says, it looks like a generic scandinavian type loom.

My guess would be that the "pulley things with kinda like elongated C's" are the pulleys and horses used for the counter-balancing of the shafts. The pulley should sit on (or under) a cross bar (a cross bar that on newer Swedish looms often has a hole in it, to position it with pegs...).

Here are a couple of pictures from Lundell's Big book of weaving:

  

The horses (that can be your c-shaped things) are connected to each other with a cord over the pulley. If you use 2 shafts (left) both ends of the horse are tied to the same shaft - if you want 4 shafts tie one end to shaft 1, the other to shaft 2. The other horse gets tied to shafts 3 and 4. (In the book there are instructions for how to tie other numbers of shafts, too: 3, 5, 6... for a counterbalance set-up)

The picture shows standard Swedish shafts, consisting of 2 heddle bars that are kept together by the heddles only. To keep the heddle bars from falling out, here is the best way ever (well, IMO :-) to secure any kind of stick used on a loom...

Have fun with your new loom!

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 16:57

Joanne Hall

Hi Paul,

I have some information on our site which will be helpful.  There are four files and the first two will be what you need.

http://glimakrausa.com/about-cm-cb-looms.html

Joanne

Sun, 11/27/2011 - 20:31

paulz

Thanks for these. I have also found some of the string heddles that came with the lom and about 100 of them are possibly probably re-usable. Once I have worked out how they go which now, thanks to the documents I should be able to do.

Before assembling my new loom I have to get paret repaired, a new horse AND a new shed built to put it in. Will hope to have it assembled for the new year.

Paul