Counterbalance Loom Modifications

The Brighton Honeycomb scarves are off the loom and waiting to have their fringes twisted and be tidied up and  washed. As I have six scarves at this stage I have bought myself a fringe twister. When the weather sorts itself out (it seems to be either very hot with the air filled with smoke from the bush fires or cold and stormy) I shall set myself up outside for a bit of twisting.

I have come across an Australian source of 20/2 NM  feltable wool and have bought a cone (elephant grey). I already have some non-shrinkable (Mora 20/2) so I am going to weave some differential shrinkage scarves. I can't use my Glimakra as I have a bit of warp left on it after completing the Brighton Honeycomb scarves. I have re-sleyed this for plain weave and plan to do some Monks Belt on it. So I will be using my Counterbalance loom for the shrinking scarves.

Based on how I found it the last time I used this loom I have made a couple of modifications. The loom had two pulleys mounted on a top beam. These pulleys support the two rollers that support the four shafts.

I have replaced the pulleys with a single top roller. I found that the pulleys were to prone to act independently of each other and not return to their original starting point after changing a shed.  In a previous post I quoted Peter Collingwood  "To ensure the shafts rise and fall without tilting, don’t just wrap their support cords around the rollers, but actually fix them to the rollers".  With the single top roller I can attach the cords which I couldn't do with the the metal pulleys.

The other thing that I have done is attach the top roller to the cross beam with turnbuckles so that I can precisely control the height of the harnesses. Texsolv is brilliant but can only be adjusted in half inch increments.  To do this I had to raise the height of the cross bar with a couple of blocks.

It all seems to be working but the final proof of the pudding will be when I get a warp on. I had a good look at the LeClerc CB looms when working all of this out. In my mind this was all going to be done is nicely finished wood but economy and practicality means that I have used a plastic pipe for the new top roller and a couple of yoga bricks to raise the height of the top beam. I will put a few cable ties on to hold it all together. If it works that will be fine but I really should have a look at getting a slightly more elegant solution.

Loom for weaving overshot

Whilst weaving the Brighton Honeycomb scarves my thoughts have been turning to what I should be doing next with my counterbalance loom.  I had decided some time ago that I would try some overshot on it and that in fact overshot would be better woven on the counterbalance than on a dobby loom.

My reasoning is that on a computerised dobby loom it is not that easy to vary what you are weaving from the draft that is being used by the software. This is fine when you know exactly what it is that you want to weave. When weaving overshot there are circumstances where the number of picks woven of a particular lift will depend on how well the pattern is squaring up which in itself is dependent of the grist and compressibility of the weft yarns.

The inestimable Mary Meigs Atwater explains it much better;

"In weaving - if it is intended to produce the pattern "as drawn in"- each block must be woven with the number of weft shots required to make it square. The number of weft shots required varies with the weight of weft-material used, so that it is impossible to write down treadling directions that will be correct for all materials. The weaver must use judgement in the matter." (The Shuttle-Craft Book of American Hand-Weaving- Mary Meigs Atwater, Page 116)

When sampling there is also a need for flexibility - if a particular treadling sequence is not to your liking then you want to switch to something else immediately. This flexibility is easy on a treadle loom, not so easy on a dobby loom.

I like reading what Mary Meigs Atwater wrote and I am fascinated by overshot patterns. I know that it sounds a bit silly but I feel that if I use my elderly counterbalance I shall somehow be a little closer to the weavers of the past. It's the "vibes" man. 

Warp Swap

Having got the CB loom polished, assembled, beamed, entered and gated I settled down to weave but after awhile I started to have subversive thoughts. The gist of the thoughts were that it was silly to be weaving a twill scarf on this (CB) loom when I had a perfectly good semi automated loom (Glimakra 24S with Toika loom controller) that would do the job more efficiently. I debated with myself  on this for a while but was reluctant to logically follow an argument that would render this CB loom redundant and eBay fodder.  Then I remembered my lurking project that would probably be better on a completely manual loom - Overshot. I'll go through my reasoning in another post but my first priority was to clear the CB loom.

The objective as to move the warp from the CB loom to the Glimakra.

I cut out the weaving I had done and rewound the warp back on to the warp beam. I took the warp beam off the CB loom and suspended it over the warp beam of the Glimakra.

This picture shows the warp with its lease sticks in place and tied onto the apron rod of the Glimakra.

To get a bit of tension I slung a couple of weight over the CB warp beam.

The picture below shows the situation half way through the process. The warp is being wound from the CB warp beam onto the Glimakra warp beam. The CB warp beam is suspended from the Glimakra frame directly above the Glimakra warp beam. Lease sticks are in place to maintain the cross and tension is supplied by some weights.

It was not plain sailing all the way. At some time during the initial beaming of this warp I managed to cross over some of the bouts which meant that when winding from one beam to another there were threads that crossed over each other and were reluctant to move smoothly through the lease sticks and pilled together. The next time I beam a warp I shall pay particular attention to see if I can work out where my mistake lies.

It is all done now so on to the next stages. I have had a touch of flu over the past few days and have used my lucid moments to study overshot drafts and change my mind a hundred times as to which pattern shall be the first cab of the rank.

Gating the Loom

Luther Hooper got it right. He didn't mention that when one is doing it for the first time and has no "ideas as to the best way of adjusting the various parts for the work" one has to do the job several times before the ideas begin to materialise. I used instructions from the web (Glimakra and LeClerc have some good stuff and I particularly liked this document;- Hand Weaving ). It was only after three attempts at tieing up this counterbalance loom that I started getting a separation of warp layers that looked like sheds.

My eureka insights were;

- Immobilise the harnesses in their correct position before attaching the lamms and treadles

- Everything must be either exactly horizontal or exactly vertical (maybe treadles excepted) and it must be balanced

- To ensure the shafts rise and fall without tilting, don’t just wrap their support cords around the rollers, but actually fix them to the rollers

The last point is a quote from Peter Collingwood that I found at the archives of the a Rugtalk List (another site that is well worth looking at).

I am now getting shed that I can work with; I need to make a few minor adjustments but weaving should start real soon now!

Counterbalance Loom

I bought this loom in March. It  has been sitting in a shed that I am just starting to repair to convert into a studio. The time has come to give my wife back her dining room.

So the CB loom had to be moved and the safest way to look after a loom and keep it safe is to have it assembled and working. By moving some stuff around an repositioning my Glimakra Standard I have made enough room for the CB loom with sufficient space to use both looms.

I wrote to the Yahoo group WeaveTech to get advice on how to clean the loom and several people gave me excellent advice; I have bought and tried every recommended product and mixture. The framework I cleaned with equal parts of mineral turps, boiled Linseed oil and vinegar. The cross beams got special treatment with natural turps and Tung oil. I also did some garden furniture for good measure. I put Carnuba wax on the moving parts. Fantastic smells!Reassembly was straightforward. The CB rollers were in a hopeless muddle with cords tangled and heddles half off the shafts. There was sufficient information on the web to enable me to sort it all out.

Change of plans and distractions

I have been a little bit distracted over the last few days because I stumbled on a loom in a second hand shop that called to me! I walked away from it initially but in the end I just had to buy it even though I have no need whatsoever for another loom. It is a traditional 4 shaft counter balance of unknown provenance but with the dignity that comes from age and experience. It is now safely wrapped up in my shed waiting for me to do a bit of reorganisation to find a space for it.

 In my last post I confidently stated that I would be weaving a rosepath patterned scarf using a "Ginger" weft. Well I won't! I wove a little bit and it looked shocking. It was both insipid and messy; because of the variety there is in the warp the rosepath pattern was lost. It looked marginally better in blue and in yellow but was still a bit ratty. I also wove a bit of 1/3 and 3/1 twill - the Ginger yarn is going back on the shelf!

So, no more rosepath - it is a striped warp so I focussed on a pattern that would emphasise this. I have settled on a weave called Tricot which comes originally from A Handbook of Weaves by G.H. Oelsner ( I got it from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Pattens by Carol Strickler.)

The picture below shows the theory;

and this is what it really looks like;

There is a very pronounced rib which looks good and the scarf is much brighter in the daylight than depicted in the photographs. I wove about 35" today so I should get it finished over the weekend.