Here are pictures of the Walter Arm loom that I just finished working
on. The company tells me it's between 55 and 60 years old. I found
no cracks, but some of the lams were a little warped.
The largest part of the work was to reduce the weaving width from 60
inches to 48 or 49 inches. I needed to do that to have room for the
loom, as you can see. That involved cutting all of the horizontal
members. For some of the joints I had to re-cut the tendons, which
were bolted on with the bolts going into huge nuts that were buried in
the wood. I don't have a mortise machine, so that meant hand
chiseling. But some of the pieces, like the bottom reed holder for the
fly shuttle, were wider on the ends than in the middle, so I decided
to cut through the piece and do a lap joint, overlapping it 11 inches
and pegging it in both directions. I also used a structural two-part
epoxy made for wood for these joints, and they seem to be every bit as
strong as before I did the cut. As you can see, I also converted it to a
parallel countermarch system.
The fly shuttle was a bit of a challenge. I toyed with figuring out
some way to make the extra width detachable because it added 10 inches
to each side, and as you can see, I don't exactly have a lot of space in
this room. In the end I decided to just build a new bottom piece for
the reed holder so I can use it or the fly shuttle or used this new
piece. The piece not being used is just stored in the closet, where it
fits because we have 8 foot ceilings.
I also increased the number of shafts from 8 to 12 and the treddles from 10 to 20. But, this loom actually has enough room for 23 shafts if you just look at how many pulleys will fit. Of course, I'd never go that high, but it's nice to not be cramped for room!
The sectional warp beam was also an issue. I wanted to use it with or without the sectional beam, so that meant making the sections removable. The problem here is that each section was screwed on with 4 of the largest wood screws I've ever seen. Plus, they were glued on! So after carefully measuring everything, I took the screws out and used a rubber hammer and chisels to break the glue joints. Of course that messed up the beam a bit, so I used an epoxy filler to fill in as needed and sanded everything down again. Then I ran the sections through the table saw to cut them all to the same width and added a new piece of wood to the bottom to make them the same size as they were originally. Finally, I drilled the holes through the added wood. So, now the sections are removable. Even without the sections, I can't really carry the beam by myself - it's just too heavy.
As you can see, it has a built in bench. I added the shelf below which also makes it sturdier.
I used the apron that came with it. The fabric was about the nicest
piece of linen canvas I've ever seen. It was all I could do to keep
myself from replacing it so I could use it to sew something!
Well, everything is done now. Whew!