Tenacious

I much prefer the word to its counterparts: obstinate, stubborn, or hard-headed.

During my off time this week, I have focused primarily on Meg, the new-to-me 24" Macomber dated from 1960.

While I was expecting a shipment from Macomber, I had no idea it had actually shipped, until the postman delivered it on Tuesday afternoon!

Everything, except the section beam with friction brake, was included. I was aware those pieces would take longer to produce.

I was actually thrilled to finally be able to outfit her with the new aprons and heel rest, as well as have enough treadle hooks for her and 32" Lil Miss.

The warp went on like a dream, and well within a day of the arrival of the parts, she was weaving.

The structure I chose for this project was a twill block, something bold and colorful, but easy to thread and treadle.

Unfortunately, we had issues with the weaving. Plain weave was fine, but I continued to have problems with skipped threads on those heddles dedicated to shafts 5 through 8.

It was obvious the harnesses did not hang evenly from one side to the other, despite all the chains being the same length. I surmised the bent rods attaching the lamms to the jacks were the issue, but short of replacing them, I was not sure how to correct the issue.

On Thursday, I decided the replace the rusted chains and S hooks from which the harnesses hung. The ones on the right side appeared to hang loosely, anyway. In resting position, the chain pooled on that side.

After a quick trip to Home Depot, I had sash chain and S hooks. Borrowing the husband's bolt cutter (I love that thing!), I decided to shorten the chains by a link to see if that would solve my problem.

What I should have done is cut them the same length as the original, but attach them one chain up, leaving the extra dangling. I did not do this because it would have been a pill to cut that extra link off later, if I truly did not need it. Cutting that link would require me to pull the chains off and reattach, anyway. So, I thought if I had to do that, I would just cut additional chains...six of one, half dozen of the other...

The thing I failed to notice until after everything was installed is the only S hooks I could find that would fit the hole in the metal harnesses were half an inch shorter than the original, which further reduced the overall length.

Thus, cutting the link would have been perfect, if I had had the same size S hooks as the original.

Friday, I was supposed to head to Louisiana to visit my mother; however, with the rain dumped in Houston and Beaumont from Imelda, I10 was closed in several places. After a brief conversation, my mother insisted I reschedule for another time. I agreed. She was safe and fine, and there was no need for her to worry about me on the road unnecessarily.

Instead of driving, I spent the day tweaking Meg and trying to figure out the skipped threads issue.

Shortening the chains helped, but did not solve the problem. In fact, it created another by decreasing the area in which I had to weave. Half-way between the breast beam and beater in resting position, the threads lifted off the race half an inch or so.

I adjusted my tension on the warp, which lowered the threads back down to the race, but created more skips. Increasing tension raised the threads even higher. I switched shuttles, but nothing worked.

Meg and I were obviously not getting along well, so we took a break, and I devoted my time to the other two looms, as well as a bit of spinning. The photo at the top is the plain weave I used to console myself on Lil Miss while I tried to work through the Meg problems.

Even then, I could not erase the disappointment I was experiencing with the little loom.

On Saturday, I ended up making new chains with fresh S hooks and replaced the ones I had put on the day before.

This solved the warp rising about the race issue, but I continued to have skipped threads, and my threading through the heddles was absolutely correct.

I even cut off the fabric and re-lashed on the warp to the front apron rod to ensure even tension throughout.

Borrowing from the husband again, I used his level to check the entire loom. The castle and beams were perfectly level. The harnesses were not, but I knew that. The beater was off by a smidgen, and it was an easy adjustment.

To attach the beater to the loom, there is a little cast iron piece with a bolt sticking through it. Here is a photo from Sarah Haskell's blog:

Here is what she had to say about it:

You can adjust the height of the beater by selecting which slot to rest upon the bolt. The other adjustment is that you can swing this small cast iron part forward and backward (might need to loosen the bolt attachment).

When you swing this small cast iron part, it will adjust how close the beater sits against the castle. Often if the floor is not level, this will affect the way the beater rest against the castle upright, causing one side of the beater to hit and another to be a slight distant away. By fine tuning the beater with this small cast part, you can accommodate for any imbalance.

When I first bought the Beast, I thought I was going to have to replace the beater, as it was not square on the loom. At that time, Meredith worked at Macomber and when I contacted them about my issued, she spoke to Eddie and talked me through making the necessary adjustments. It worked beautifully.

With the initial warp I put on Meg, I adjusted the beater square before I began; however, as those aprons shredded as I was warping the beam and throughout the weaving, which caused my cloth to resemble parallelograms, I guess the beater became misaligned again. 

Once I adjusted the direction of the cast iron bits, my beater was square and THERE WERE NO MORE SKIPPED THREADS!

HALLELUJAH!

While I was convinced the issue was in the rods, and I still have every intention of replacing them, I was just so relieved and grateful to have fixed the problem.

She is now weaving like a dream. Bless her!

While I need to even out the mark lines left by the temple along the edges, the fabric she is making is gorgeous!

YAY!