Equipment Failure

I admit it - I expect my equipment to perform under what some would label 'adverse conditions'.

So it was with the warping valet at the AVL last night.

Now the bar mounted in the ceiling was not originally intended to support a lot of weight. It was originally intended to get repair ends up off the floor. As such, the bar was mounted inside the footprint of the loom.

What this meant was that the water jugs would jam up against the tension box rail as the warp was being beamed. And last night they jammed up against the rail one too many times and just yards away from finishing the warp, one of the support brackets pulled out of the ceiling and dumped the bar, lease sticks/reed/warp into my arms. Since I'm taking Plavix, I bruise like a peach (as Doug puts it) so I have the bruises to show for it. :}

Now that Doug has to repair the valet anyway, the plan is for him to move it a foot towards the back of the loom so that in future the water jugs will not jam against the tension box rail. He'll also install much sturdier screws into the ceiling to help support the weight of the water jugs (and the tugging I give the warp to straighten it) and in the end, that should make beaming the painted warps much easier, ergo faster.

Sometimes there are little things that need to be fixed but they haven't been a big enough pain for me to ask Doug to find time in his schedule to actually do the fix. And sometimes things break so that I have to deal with equipment down time and let him get to it.

Fortunately in this case I can finish beaming the warp without the valet - albeit more slowly - and continue to weave, but I really need the valet in order to beam the last painted shawl warp.

For today, however, I'm off to the dyepots with the 2/20 silk. I'm hoping to get the skeins up on my Art Fire store soon.