Category Archives: Equipment

Hearthside Loom Restoration

Equipment, Looms

The restoration on the Sears Roebuck Hearthside Loom stalled over winter as I worked through various other projects. But in some unseasonably warm weather today I was able to set up outside and do some sanding.

The heddle frames (6) all need some cleaning, minor repairs, and some replacement parts before the loom can be put back together. I started with one (number 6 as it turns out – some previous owner had marked each with black marker on the unseen ends). I have generally preferred stamping the number into the visible top of the frame and putting matching numbers in the castle to match. Future work once they are cleaned up.

The first problem was the flat stamped heddles were all mixed up direction wise and also in some cases put on the heddle bars intertwined. I took off all the heddles and sorted them into the correct orientation. While they were off I sanded the rust of the heddle bars and put a light coat of CRC on them before putting the heddles back on. This frame had 80 heddles. 3 other frames look about the same amount and 2 don’t have any.

Replacement hook
Original hook

The heddle frames had two different styles of heddle hooks (and numerous missing). I believe the original were the simple threaded hook with a spring and drilled out dowel. I suspect over time some dowels split or broke and the owner at the time purchased the more modern metal hooks. I ‘borrowed’ some hooks to make up the 4 and in the future will buy replacement metal hooks to standardise. There are 3 heddle bars missing which will need replacing idc. To fit the newer hooks on this frame I had to drill out the small holes with something suitable for the screw part and also drill with a larger drill about 1/8 of an inch to allow for the spring stop to go below the surface of the wood – needed to ensure the hooks were at the correct height for the heddle bar.

The first heddle frame came up OK. It will certainly never rival some of my other looms for looks, but for functionality it will be fine. I’ll wait until just before re-assembly to apply some light oil/wax for protection.

I did sand down some other parts of the frame and will continue with that as I order the heddle bars and hooks.

Rainy Day work

Clean & Service, Equipment, Festivals, Looms, Project, Studio, Weaving

The ‘Oak and Fern’ bathmat is now finished. It’s still on the loom as I have enough warp for another four to five foot long rug. I may weave two smaller door mats for the doors from the studio to the garage and the workshop. I have plenty of weft yarn.

Oak & Fern Bathmat Finished

In other work in the studio I continued cleaning various parts of ‘Senior’. The treadles are like the rest of the loom wood – perhaps maple under a dark stain. One part that seems to be different is the shuttle race on the beater frame. It appears to be a darker wood and is typically a harder wood as it is an area that experiences a fair amount of wear and tear.

I’ve numbered the heddle frames as they are removed and cleaned to ensure I put them back in the right order. The frames and lamms seem to be in reasonable condition and don’t have much wear. One small shortfall is the lower lamm where the original wire connections to the treadle was made is only as wide as the 6 treadles side by side. Most looms have two extra treadles, i.e. for a 4 shaft; 6 treadles. If I add two more treadles I may have to extend the lower lamm on each side. The side by side picture shows the first cleaned treadle and beside it the shuttle race. The slot for the reed at the back of the race is a good example of the workmanship. The top and front of the race are finished and smooth. The slot edge is still as originally cut . I’ll likely sand it of a little more just for the looks as functionally it doesn’t need changing.

Today is the start of a fine period here in the valley so I will be able to get back up on the roof to get as much done before we head up to Townsend for the Fall Guild sale this weekend where I will be volunteering and selling some of my woven and spun items.

Sleying assist

Equipment, Weaving

As I’ve been threading heddles and sleying the reed for the throw I found that I could be easily distracted, although to be honest it’s probably just old age forgetfulness!!  The sett is 15 ends per inch and I have a 12 dent reed on the loom. I have a 15 dent reed but a) it’s not wide enough for this project and b) it need a really good clean!  To get 15 epi in a 12 dent reed the sleying is 1,1,1,2 but where the two ends that go through the same dent are the same color it’s not immediately obvious that is the doubled one.  Simple solution – using a thinned down bamboo skewer I slip that into the dent when I put the second end through.  Count from there and when I hit the next double – move the skewer.  Now I can happily be distracted (often) and get right back into the sleying (I’m 2/3rds finished)

Reed sleying
Sleying order reminder

Another annoyance I have is slipping the heddles past the heddle bar holder on this wide project (heddles are all pushed to the sides).  I think I have a solution, but will have to get out to the workshop for that. More later

Wee Peggy Service

Equipment, Spinning

As mentioned in a previous blog I had a spinning wheel clean/service job to do.  I decided to get it out of the way early so that I could get on with other valley chores.

Here’s a list of the work performed:

  • Check and clean bearings
  • Tighten back maiden and finial
  • Replace 2 missing bobbin bearings
  • Replace lazy kate stop
  • Re-glue right leg
  • Clean all wood and apply light coat of ‘Feed-N-Wax’ where appropriate, polish.
  • Add new leaders
  • Test spin

Extra work:

  • Number bobbins and weigh each one.

All that for a base fee of $30.  It cost a grand total of 2 dollars for the dowel to make the lazy kate stop and the whole job took me just under 3 hours so seems reasonable.

Before and after shots.  The wheel spins pretty near exactly the same as my Little Peggy – although the ratios are slightly different given my whorls are larger.  With Scotch tension on both wheels that doesn’t really make a difference.

The number I added to each bobbin is so that they can be weighed once full of yarn to give an idea how much yarn is on each bobbin.  Despite looking identical the bobbins ranged from 1.6 to 1.9 ounces.  The Lazy Kate stop was missing so I fashioned a new one from hardwood dowel.  It now means when plying, the bobbin won’t slowly work it’s way off the rod at some inconvenient moment.

Given that the wheel was in working condition this service didn’t really take much time.  When repairs come into the equation time/money amounts will need to be changed.

Card Weaving

Equipment, Project, Tartan, Weaving

At the last Scenic Valley Handweavers Guild meeting one of the members returned my card weaving book which somehow ended up with me volunteering to lead an ‘introduction’ to card-weaving at the August meeting.  Given that my experience to date was to read said book and produce a band which was turned into a strap for my mandolin with the addition of some leather ends.  Hardly an expert!!

Nevertheless I do have plenty of time (I know, famous last words) to prepare, so to that end I have begun some background research into resources (lots and lots available via the Internet) and to start weaving some test bands which I will take along to meetings from now until then to drum up interest.

The first challenge was to find my set of cards in the weaving room – first fail.  They’re there somewhere, but under something and certainly not on the shelf where other related items are.  Plan ‘b’: produce my own…

I made a small set out of 100lb card stock – similar to playing card thickness – by drawing them on the computer 4 to a page then printing them out and punching holes and finally cutting out the individual cards.  This seems to work until a bit more tension appears when the twist builds up (more on that below).  I used a wooden ruler as a beater last time I wove this way which works but is not quite as ‘classy’ as a combo beater/stick-shuttle.  I had some seasoned white oak that I’d stored in the shed for a couple of years so quickly cut out, shaped, and sanded a test model.  Works fine!

Custom cards
Custom beater
Trial band

The warp yarn was the 8/2 tencel I used in the recent scarves.  I was curious to see if the solid and variegated contrast would show up. It did.  I’ve initially used a thicker weft yard but will also weave some with the same yarn as the warp to shorten the pattern and tidy up the selvedges a little.  This pattern calls for just backward turning of the cards which leads to twist building up behind the cards and would normally shorten the amount of warp yarn available for weaving and as mentioned adds tension which my thin cards don’t handle well.  The solution was to attach the warp at the back to fishing spinners so that each 4 warp yarn ends that pass through a card, can be ‘unwound’ simply by letting the spinner spin.

warp spinnersIn this case I just attached the spinners to a rod held onto the table by small clamps.  When the tension builds (excess twist) it is simple to slide something from each card towards the spinner and at some stage it slips and releases all the spin.  This test band only has 10 cards;  with larger amounts of cards more spinners would obviously be needed and a more advanced approach to space them out in rows would be required.

I still have to add a coat of varnish to the beater so that color from the yarn doesn’t stain it and find a better front attachment – I’m currently using a mid-sized clamp that works fine but gets in the way when sitting at the table.

Other work for the day was some more threading heddles and sleying the reed for the tartan throw – slow but steady progress there.  I also sewed the bias binding edging onto the Florida tartan place-mat/table runner set.  It worked out well so now I’ll finish the rest so that this house-warming gift can be delivered.

Dressing the loom
Florida tartan place-mat

 

 

TAG Picnic

Equipment, Festivals, Looms, Weaving

Saturday this week was the Townsend Artisan Guild annual picnic.  The event was held at the Metcalf Bottoms pavilion in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park about half way between Townsend and Gatlinburg.

I headed off a little early so that I could call in to some of the many antique stores on the way north that are often closed when I am traveling to and from Townsend.  Along the way I managed to pick up a couple of old rip saws – rusty but otherwise OK. They will need some cleaning, but rip saws are expensive and pretty hard to find as power tools are to most common option.

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Around 40 people attended the picnic and there was a lot of activity in and around us at the many other picnic tables and a constant stream of folk heading to and from the river.  At mountain elevations the temperature was easily 10 degrees cooler than in the valley where it was in the mid to high nineties.

I also picked up the TAG Harrisville Design loom.  This is the one I have used on multiple occasions to demonstrate weaving.  They are short on storage space and don’t really have any other weavers.  I’ll look after the loom and make sure it is ready for demonstrations and also potentially set up and run some weaving classes for interested members.

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The warp on the loom is the one I put on so that the Scenic Valley Handweavers could use the loom to demonstrate at the last Smoky Mountains Fiber Arts Festival.  I wove the first few stripes to give them an idea how to proceed.  I can see we’ll need some lessons on reversing twill stripes and consistent beating!!

Salvaged wood

Equipment

In my post yesterday I mentioned that some pieces of my father’s loom had survived the fire as they had been stored outside.  I took some time to strip off the outside coating of dust, dirt, and charred wood, then sanded off the stain down to bare wood.

 

 

The saved pieces
One piece cleaned

The wood appears to be pine, but in saying that it is hard to tell.  If it is pine it is probably fairly old as it was likely re-purposed when the loom was built.  It is straight and doesn’t have any real knots or imperfections so the potential to make it into something like a boat shuttle or two and some handles for various weaving tools, is high.

IMG_9280
The grain

For the moment I will clean off the other pieces and then store the wood safely until the workshop is finished and I have the tools necessary to finish this project.