Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Unsupported



One of the reasons I like the AVL is that I can do things like this and not have to do anything remedial because the tension on the warp is not held at the cloth beam but up at the front on the 'breast' beam (aka the sandpaper beam).

On an ordinary loom, this overhang would have to be dealt with in some way.

In this instance it has happened because I finally used up (yay!) the cottolin and switched to 100% linen.

Linen is much denser and more rigid than cotton or cottolin (which is half to 60% cotton) and therefore it does not draw in nearly as much as the other yarn.  That means the web is wider and the selvedges tend to hang over the edge of the cloth roll.

On an ordinary loom I would either cut off and re-tie so that the linen weft was only building up on linen weft layers or I would insert several sticks (warp packing sticks, whatever) to support the linen layers.

Since the mechanics of the AVL are different, though, none of that is necessary and the web just rolls on up and nothing nasty happens to my warp tension.

When the loom is working properly it's a dream.  When it isn't it becomes a nightmare and careful diagnosis of what the problem is needs to be done.  With more mechanical 'aid' comes more opportunity for things to go horribly awry as a friend says.  Fortunately right now the loom is behaving, and I'm making good progress on this warp.  So good, in fact, that I might even be able to cut it off tomorrow, or Thursday at the latest. 

I haven't decided if I will switch to the scarf warps on the Fanny or immediately dress the AVL again.  I'm sort of leaning towards the latter while the loom is behaving!

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