As a local "loom whisperer" I am often called upon to repair damaged looms. Lately I have seen several Macomber "Baby Macs" that have lam and track damage caused by replacing the steel tie-up hooks with texsolv. Some people make this change successfully, many more do not. Some of the latter inadvertently do permanent damage to their looms. Here's how:
Figure 1 below shows what sometimes happens with texsolv tie-ups. Texsolve can bind in the treadle slot, pulling inward or outward on the lam as well as downward. This diagonal inward and outward pressure bends the lams, making them functionally shorter, putting abrasive pressure on the front and back of the track, wearing down the ends of the lams, and eventually it will pull the lams right out of the tracks. The lams are very strong up and down, but they have little resistence to bending forward or backward.
To prevent this from happening, Macomber designed the loom to use steel hooks for tie-up, rather than texsolv. Figure 2 shows how superhooks work. The hooks are held in the vertical position by the clip over the top of the lam and by gravity. The treadle is cut out underneath to grip the bottom of the hook directly below the lam. All of the force is exerted directly downward, not forward or backward. This puts force on the lam at it's strongest point, so it doesn't bend the lam. It avoids dragging the lam against the track surfaces, reduces wear on the lams and the tracks, and prevents lams from popping out of the tracks.
I know many of you swear by the texsolv tie-ups you've added to your Baby Macs. I wish you the best of luck with them. Just make sure they're pulling straight downward or be prepared to visit a repair shop soon! DRW