Lockjaw

 

The more technology, the more things that can go 'wrong'.

This is what I've been dealing with since Thursday.  Shaft #7 hook/finger is standing proud and preventing the knife from returning to the up position so that the next shed can be generated.  We worked through the trouble shooting advice from Louet, changing just one thing at a time and this, or variations of this, kept happening.  Until it was late enough on Friday that I knew we weren't going to be able to contact Louet over the weekend.  Most likely.

We had zeroed in on a possible cause, but I asked on the Megado owners group on Facebook and got some more suggestions.  We tried the ones we hadn't already tried and it continued to happen.

But we were beginning to focus on one possible cause, for which we did not have the pegs to implement so I phoned Jane Stafford Textiles and ordered pegs.   Of course it was too late in the day to get my order into the mail so hopefully that is being done today.  But that means they won't arrive before Wed or more likely, Thursday.

Then Dave contacted Doug (Doug is my in house loom tender) and they exchanged some emails and it is beginning to look like our suspected problem might well be the issue, but Dave wanted video or photos.  Since the issue is intermittent, capturing it happening on video is impossible.  But once it locked up Doug was able to get a photo to send to Dave.

The loom has mostly behaved very well with minor issues now and then.  However it is my main loom right now and I have weaving projects planned and I'm trying to get to my happy place for a couple of hours every day (that I can).

When my happy place becomes my unhappy place, I become a very irritable, unhappy camper.

I am trying very hard to accept that this is happening right now, and rather than give in to my frustration, stay focused on figuring it out and get over this hump.

This is not to criticize Dave in any way - he has been extremely helpful, first during set up when I could not get my desktop to link to the loom, and now when he answered Doug's email during the weekend, something he didn't really need to do and we didn't expect him to.  But we are grateful to him for being attentive and offering more information and suggestions.

I'm hoping that this photo and the additional detailed information I sent last night will allow him to confirm our suspicions and that the pegs we ordered will allow us to resolve the problem and get me back to weaving. 

I had hoped to get this warp off and the next one into the loom before we leave for Vancouver, but that may not happen now.  We will see.

And yes, TexSolv cord CAN stretch.  Says so right in the list of trouble shooting things to look for...you'd think I weave a lot.  Or something...