Sunday, April 19, 2015

Tentatively


Since I have only woven one shawl (one third of the warp) I'm only saying that the collar is looking promising.  In order to determine if it is going to work the way I want it to, I need to finish this warp and see if it works well, right to the very end.  I also need to put another warp on that requires higher tension.  With a special order of six place mats needing to go on as soon as these shawls are complete, I should know fairly soon.

When I looked at photos of older looms with the live weight tension system, they all seemed to have this much larger diameter collar for the cord to run around.  I think it is because a better ratio between where the cord is holding tension and the diameter of the warp is required.

The larger collar accomplishes a couple of things.  One, it's round, not hexagonal so the cord has a smooth surface to slip on, not the hexagonal planes of the beam.  Two, the much larger diameter means the cord has a lot more surface to grip and I think that is why so much less weight is needed.

With the cord just wrapped around the beam, I was using 3 pounds on the 'light' end of the cord, 25 pounds on the 'heavy' end.  With the collar, I've got 3 pounds on the 'light' end, but just 13 pounds on the heavy end.  The result?  Less effort required to advance the warp.

I'm sure my neck/shoulder will thank me!

But I need to finish this warp and see how the tension holds right from the beginning to the end.  Plus how it works on a warp requiring much higher tension.  The collar is actually larger than the diameter of the shawl warp which is 9 meters long, so it should allow my maximum warp length of 11 meters with no problems.

Testing proceeds...

8 comments:

Peg Cherre said...

Oooooo....I will definitely stay tuned to hear how this goes. Despite many trials, changes, reworks, and attempts at modifications, I've not been able to make the live weight system work for my baby wraps, which are by far my longest warps, the ones with the highest tension, and the ones I weave the most. So if this works for you, I'll give this mod a shot, too!

the Mighty M said...

What would happen if you had two disks with weights on each side of the beam?

Ellen said...

Thanks for sharing this. The wire brake cable on my Fanny just broke and I've had to replace it with live-weight tension. So far, so good. I wove three bamboo scarves and the tension held at what I wanted. You are such an inspiration.

Laura Fry said...

My loom is narrow enough that I'm hoping I only need to have the weight at one end. For a wider loom, I think a weight at each end would probably be the best approach.

Cheers
Laura

Peg Cherre said...

I'll be so interested to see what you think is 'narrow enough.' I often weave to the max of my Macomber width - about 32".

Laura Fry said...

My loom is 36" although I don't usually go full width. The collar really has made a huge difference in how well the system works. I had to remove some weight from the heavy end by the time I got down to the last shawl. :)

cheers,
Laura

the Mighty M said...

If your disks can come on and off like beam flanges (can't tell because of the photo) then it would seem you could use two if you were not going full width. Of course I can't really see. There might be something else in the way.

Laura Fry said...

Hmm, I could but it would mean more modifications...have to think about that...
Cheers
Laura