Emmatrude's Spa Treatment part 1

My dear husband, under the disguise of changing a light bulb for me, took this sneaky picture of me weaving on my last project,  Ethan's receiving blankets, on my large loom I call Emmatrude. I would have liked to have pulled a comb through my hair... oh, well! The project width was thirty six inches wide which was an adjustment for me after narrower scarves.  It was after completing this project that I discovered the severe fraying of the 20+ cords. I knew that there was a big job ahead of me and even as of today, I'm only half way (hence the part one!) The basic fact is, the loom is a tool and has moving parts so maintenance is not only required but to be expected.

{I can recall weaving on table looms and small floor looms at round robin weaving workshops that were in terrible shape. It just never seem to occur to their owners to tighten nuts and bolts, repair or replace parts or even clean them! One teacher I know would always ask someone to bring along a weavers tool kit for just these looms that inevitably appear. Don't be intimidated by your loom! Learn how it goes together, how it works and keep it in good shape. It will give you a great weaving experience back for many years! Not to mention increase its resale value...}


It has also been awhile since I last gave the loom a rub down with an oil and normally try to do this every two years in the summer time so I can have the doors and windows open for ventilation.  I think its been five years!  Okay, its time.

I have the new cords in hand from Woolhouse Tools. I'm keeping the older cords on treadles  1 and 2 and treadles 15 and 16. They haven't been in use much and so just fine. Its the centre 12 treadles that must be replaced with new. Now to be fair, not all cords are in bad shape. I'll be keeping many of them and using them as repair cords for the future.

Here you can see I have pulled the pegs and dropped the centre 12 treadle cords. At this point I thought I could leave the two treadles on either side in place so they are still set up.

Here you can see that I have removed the back four shafts worth of cords from the  loom. This is where it gets a bit complicated.  The cords on the back shafts (9 to 12) actually have less distance to travel to the back of the loom, so they are overall shorter than the centre four, then the front four shafts. Then you have two cords for upper and lower lamms and these are also different lengths as one must physically rise further to reach the upper lamms.
So I must take the cords off the back four lower lamms first and then the upper lamms in sequence.  I used gel knee pads and a large pillow and lay on the treadles and just got busy. Short cords? throw in one direction... long ones in another. When all done, get up and stretch... and then bundle the cords and mark what they are for length and where they came from.  Take a Robaxacet for the back and get back under again.

Then I moved to the centre four shafts (5 to 8) and did it all over again.  By now, being under the loom for long periods of time with my thoughts, with great tunes playing on the iPod player, I came to realize that  putting the cords back on must be done one shaft at a time, upper and then lower lamms, just like when it was when it was initially set up. The two treadles on either side with all their cords would make that process next to impossible to do as there would be a sea of wood and eye rings and the chance of placing on the wrong one very likely... and very hard to correct. Okay, they had to come off too and also in the  specialized size shaft groups.  *sigh*

So, here you can see I have taken each of the side two treadles completely off (and marked with which shafts they came from and their lengths for going back on later)  I've now  completed the centre four shafts and only have the even longer cords for shafts 1 to 4 left to do. Bruce came and spent some time under the loom at the front and took most of these off.  Then we were done!

The tied yarn on a couple of eyes in this upper picture show where two cords frayed almost right through. We're thinking there must be a metal spur or two there so will be replacing those eyes for new ones to be safe.

Here are the six bundles of the centre treadles all trussed up and ready for storage. The badly frayed cords were removed and the good parts of those cords can be cut and used for tie up cords on my Louet. Mainly they will provide a supply of repair cords for the 20+.

Now its time to think 'spring cleaning'. The loom was thoroughly vacuumed and wiped down with a damp cloth. I used Murphy's oil soap on the front breast beam and the top beam of the beater. There was a lot of dirt and oils from my hands, despite hand washing! I dismantled the shafts and upper lamms and bundled the heddles from each shaft.   They went into the laundry tub for a dunking and came up much brighter! The water looked like tea!  Here they are drip drying....

They dried quickly and looked brand new instead of a dingy grey.

The heart of a loom is its shafts and with them gone, it looks quite gutted!  I have left the lower lamms in place and hope that when it comes time to re-cord the loom, they aren't in the way. If so, they have to come down too. I'm trying to reduce some work where I can!

We finally got a couple of nice warm breezy days so I opened everything right up and oiled the shaft sticks and upper lamms.

I have an old towel down on the floor and stood the newly oiled parts up against the front of the loom to soak up the oil. The glow is beautiful and they visibly brightened.  I could imagine the main portions of the loom enjoying the coming treatment too!

In these two pictures, with the exception of the cloth beam and the sectional rakes where warp or cloth will touch, all have received an oiling,  and then a further  rub down to come to remove the excess oil.

So I'll end with where I am as of today. I've made a start at replacing the shafts and heddles back into position. The heddles go back on nicely but they are all criss crossed and I'm separating them. That should keep me out of trouble for a while.

Looks better already doesn't it? I will hang only the first shaft upper lamm and do measurements to have them all hanging in their right positions, six inches apart. This is to maximize the size of my shed by allowing proper movement of the treadle from its resting place to the floor when depressed.  Once I'm into replacing the 20+ cords, the balance of the upper lamms (and lower lamms?)  will go back on in alignment with the first shaft and line up like little ducks. Time will tell if I can leave the lower lamms in place or have to take them down and add back in one at a time. At this point, it's a minor detail!

You do realize that this report is based on *many* days of chipping away at the elephant.... right?  Part two will no doubt take equally long. There is no hurry as I do have another loom to play with :)

20+ Tune Up Time

This is nine and a half yards of 2/10 twill towels all folded up and waiting by the serger and sewing machine. These will turn into proper towels very soon! It has a very satifying 'weighty heft' to it. I decided to start on the countermarche loom's tune up right after NY's. There was quite a bit of lint associated with the last warp so my usual post project vacuuming will be extra careful.

Here I have put the locking pin in place so all jacks are perfectly aligned. The tops of all my shafts and all my lamms below are all at the same height. Great! No adjustments are needed here. The texsolv cord here is as old as my loom so all 'ease' is long gone!

Here my treadle has been hiked up as high as it will go...

At the back of the loom at the peg board where all tie up's are controlled, I have pulled and placed one peg to hold it up. I also pulled all the other cords so they don't dangle underneath.
Below they have all been pulled and so all treadles are up in the air. Why??


So I can vacuum up all that nasty black lint! I'm using the peg board as additional hands. The carpet visibly brightened up. The lint and dust from weaving can be quite hard on your lungs. You may be more 'relaxed' elsewhere in the house, but here I recommend vacuuming after each project and sometimes during when the lint is bad! Case in point: tencel, linen, cottolin and chenilles. Wearing a dust mask might be a good thing if this causes you problems.

Now we start the tune up job. Here I have placed a thin board across from side to side of the loom. My hubby made this for me so it elevates the treadles at the correct height as recommended by Woolhouse Tools in their loom assembly guide.



So they are held firmly in place and now we need to prevent them from lifting upwards. I placed my breast beam across (it's heavy!) Then I placed full magazine boxes on top. That should do it. Connor is going to watch it for me.


At the back of the loom, at the peg board, I systematically pull *all* slack out of the cords so they are snug. I'm using the resistance of the weight on the treadles to play off against. If I can feel lift, then more weight is needed!


What ever clear slot is just at the hole in the board is where the peg goes. You can just see the old tie. The difference is 1 cm.


Here a large number have been done: where you see red, there is no change and if it's all white, then it need a new marker. The snippet of yarn marks the 'sweet spot' for peg placement when doing the tie up. This adjustment should last for a good long time.

Here, out of sixteen treadles I have only done the centre twelve. I use eight treadles quite often and they had a lot of fresh white showing. The treadles towards the outer areas had much more red showing. I have used up to twelve treadles in some projects but most often eight or ten. I made a decision to leave the outer two treadles on each side as they haven't been used, so no easing. Those ties on these treadles I will leave red so I know they have yet to be done.


I have leaned over the back beam and here you can see that the centre fourteen are tight and taut!

Where they travel down from the lamms above, each tie point on each shaft is taut! There are no slackers to be seen. This is a very good thing. Far easier to spot and correct them now. While there are a total of 384 cords underneath, minus the 96 getting a pass this time, there is a method to all this texsolv madness. This tie up assist is set up so that absolutely every possible tie up combination is prepared and follows a dedicated path. In some ways, it's like a hands on dobby, with all the treadles in play. I would hazard a guess that my pegging the cords is quicker than setting the dobby bars.

There is a lot of tension on the cords and now that all are pegged, I need some slack to do the next phase of the tune up. I take the weights off and remove the treadle board. Nothing moved!! They are all perfectly level. Trust me, this is a very good thing. If something had moved either up or down then some small adjustment to find 'level' would be needed, but not today...


If you are still with me at this point (thanks for sticking this out!) now we get to the really boring part (oops, just heard some of you leaving.... :) Each freshly pegged spot needs a new tie cord to mark that particular section. This is so in the future I can just pull the cord quickly, stick a peg in and build a eight shaft/ eight treadle tie up in 5 to 6 minutes, as opposed to being stuck under a loom and then endless tweaking. In the picture above you can see the old red tie, the peg and the new purple tie. Once marked, all red ties will be removed. You can see the difference in this one cord... some cords are even two slots out. No wonder my shed was all ahoo!

I won't bore you with the making of endless new ties.... but I'm chipping away at it. I will also be placing the sectional beam back on and reverting to my hybrid warping method. I have no regrets about trying to warp a la Louet but unless my loom sheds it second warp beam, it's not a good option for me.

Ta Da! Here she is ... all finished and ready for action!

This loom has an oil finish and does look a bit dry in places. I will give the old gal an oiling come spring when the doors and windows can be opened. That's a fun time as I get right into it and any wood tool will be dragged out and buffed up. Its part of my spring cleaning ritual.

I've decided to quickly do another towel warp once the loom is ready. With the coming renovations, I want something that I can just sit and weave, nothing too complicated as there is going to be lot of noise and fuss upstairs. I can hide down here with my iPod on.

Now, the second anniversary contest is still ongoing (see previous post if you are new here). If you haven't yet, be sure to place a comment on the post before this one. The draw winners will be announced in the next post. There are quite a few entries and with just the two gifts, so I'm bound to disapoint some of you.... but heck, you might just win!