Hello! I'm new on the group but wanted to ask your expertise on an affordable compact dobby loom? I'm an experienced (though probably slightly rusty) weaver who's used older dobbies in the past but currently only has a table loom. I'm looking for something compact that I can use for sampling and will be ok with fine yarn, and the above all fit into my budget. Does anyone have an opinion on one of the above over the other? I've also been told toikas are great but can't figure out which might be comparible, so info on that would be great also (I'm looking for 16+ shafts, 24 might be ideal). Thanks in advance for any imput! 

 

Comments

Sun, 08/20/2017 - 18:33

danteen (not verified)

I cannot speak to the Louet loom, but have owned a WDL and woven a bit on the studio dobby.  I thought the studio dobby took too much effort to treadle.  I can't lift that many shafts with leg power any longer.  Though the price was good.

 I  have owned a second-hand WDL that had 24 shafts and was 16" wide.  The WDL was very light to treadle as the shafts are small, light and have texsolv heddles.   I wove quite a bit on it.  I sold it when downsizing and sometimes regret it because it is a much bigger deal to warp up a sample on a larger floor loom.  Being so narrow, it was very easy to add heddles if I made a threading error.  With an open top reed in the beater as a raddle, it was quite to wind the warp on.  I regularly put on 12-15 yard warps of 10/2 to 20/2 cotton and rayon for samples and or scarves.

Because of the lightness of the shafts, I had trouble treadling the threading.  After several correct lifts some shafts would stay up.  Did not find a good solution to that.  I had a CD III on that loom and can't say if the new CD IV is any different.

 I also made a couple of modifications to it, such as tighening the warp beam tension  by moving the position of an eye bolt and adding barrel nuts to the beater top.  Though my loom had been through two other owners and there are current updates to its construction, which might mitigate the problems that I encountered.  I really liked the spring tensioning system after I got it adjusted to my liking.  I could just roll up the cloth beam and move the whole warp forward without slackening the tension at all.  Simple.   Though the light weight shafts would often shift forward as well and I'd have to move them back by hand (just a push toward the back of the loom) so that their cables to the dobby would be in the proper place and they would not get hung up on each other  with the next lift.

I guess every loom has it quirks, but those were all easy to live with.

I still have two larger AVL looms and a 32 shaft, 48 inch Toika.

Sun, 08/27/2017 - 02:44

rzvieira

Sorry - I'm new to the site and only just found your reply - thank you so much for your imput, great info.