Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Modifications

On Weavolution, Kerstin posted some of her loom modifications and asked if others had similarly modified their loom.  The short answer to that is yes.

For me a loom is a tool and if it isn't working the way I want it to, it needs to be changed.

Peg also posted on Weavolution about the position of her underslung beater.  It was too far away from her and her fingers kept getting caught in the heddles.  I had a similar problem with my rescued Leclerc Fanny.  You can see the original beater 'bumper' on the castle upright and the new bumper Doug installed to hold the beater further away from the shafts.  He had some high impact plastic, screwed that into the loom upright, then got a new 'bumper' and screwed that into the plastic.  Now, instead of the back of the beater top resting on the bumper, the sword does, which holds the beater out just enough that I can grab the beater without getting entangled with the shafts/heddles.

Works like a charm.  :)



One of the things I found when I got my AVL (lo, these many decades ago) was that the heddle keepers jumped up when the shafts came down and very quickly started drilling holes into the shafts.  After thinking about it for a while I grabbed a bag of small (1"?) elastics I had hanging around and looped one end around the metal pin, under the shaft and over the pin again from the other side.

The elastics aren't 'perfect' as they do tend to dry out and break, but when that happens I grab another elastic, drop it onto the pin, under the shaft and over the pin again.  Takes a few seconds and it's done.  And it's cheap.

Now there probably isn't another person on the planet who has the same problem but if I'd left them, the heddle keepers would have drilled themselves right through the shafts and then I would have had a much bigger problem.


So, if your tools aren't working as well as you'd like them to, there may be a very easy and simple solution to hand.  A little creative thinking - outside the box, as the saying goes - and things might go much more smoothly.  And that's always A Good Thing, right?  :)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's funny with looms. Right now I have two that I use. One I havent done one singel modification on-the other one is faceing a lot of improvments... I got it a few years ago and that owner had made some "kreative" rep work. So that needs to be fixed, and then I'm going to make some changes that,hopefully, will make the loom easier to tie up etc
Laila

Laura Fry said...

Hopefully you can get it working to your satisfaction. I have had some looms I've done nothing to in terms of changes - others have been changed significantly (like my AVL).
cheers,
Laura

Anonymous said...

Actually, Peg couldn't reach the beater easily, and it was Joanne Hall whose fingers kept getting caught in the heddles--a little overreach, I guess! Wonderful solutions you all came up with. It's great to see those things, not only because it solves a problem quickly and cheaply, but also because it helps to break down the resistance many of us have to making alterations to our looms.

Laura Fry said...

Oops - guess I combined the two. :)

cheers,
Laura