Continued from Dressing the Glimakra B2F Step 5: Tying Up the Lamms & Treadles
Remove the countermarch locking pins
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| The locking pins keep the jacks (and everything else) from moving. |
The shafts shouldn't drop more than slightly.
Evaluate the shed
This involves weaving a couple shots and then pressing each treadle in turn to check the levelness of the bottom of the shed.
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| Adjustments needed on both bottom and top |
Fortunately, I took good notes on adjusting the shed the first time I set up the Glimakra. That post is here. Plus, I have Joanne Hall's Tying Up the Countermarch Loom (book review here). The summary of the process as follows.
- With locking pins in place, check:
- That the shafts are centered to the loom.
- That the warp runs through the center of the heddle eyes. If it doesn't, then the shafts need to be raised or lowered accordingly by adjusting the cord on the anchor pins on the jacks at the top of the countermarch.
- That the beater height allows the shed to run through the middle of the reed.
- That the lamms are level with one another. Adjust if necessary.
- Remove the locking pins
- Depress each treadle in turn and examine the shed.
- If all the warp ends are level, that's it.
- If some of them are above or below the others, make notes of which shaft they are on.
- To adjust the bottom threads of the shed:
- Start by adjusting treadle cords at the upper lamms. Use your notes.
- For shafts with warp threads that are too high, shorten the treadle ties.
- For shafts with warp ends that are below the shed, lengthen the treadle ties.
- Remove the locking pins and check again. Make more adjustments needed.
- To adjust the top of the shed:
- Adjust the treadle cords at the lower lamms, using your list.
- For threads that run too high, lengthen the treadle ties.
- For threads that run too low, shorten the treadle ties.
- Recheck and repeat if needed.
- Note that this is opposite of what was done with the upper lamms.
Note: Treadles don't have to be even in height.
Weave the header
Couldn't help but be a little nervous. Did I get my shed adjustments right? Did I make any threading mistakes? I caught a few when I sleyed the reed. Did I get the tension even across the warp? I'll find out now!
- Shed: good
- Treadle height: comfortable
- Fell line: straight
- Threading errors: the only "error" turned out to be a dropped treadle cord
- The ski shuttle worked well
Next time should go more quickly. For one thing, the shafts and lamms should need no further adjustment in the future. Plus, with this warp, I spent a lot of time researching, reading, re-reading, and comparing notes from various sources. For future reference, I have this blog series to refer to.
And with that, I'm ready to weave.
Dressing the Glimakra B2F Step 3: Winding on the Warp
7 comments:
Leigh, the one thing I walked away from when we visited the rug factory in Turkey was the fact that the cost of hand weaving is almost 100% that of labor - as you are pointing out, not just the actual weaving itself but all of the set-up (and tear down, when it comes).
TB, that is an excellent point, and one that deserves some public education. When I used to do craft shows, people would often eye an item and its price and ask, "how long did it take to weave that?" I would find myself focusing on the "weave" part and answer "it took X hours to weave". I could see that they were calculating cost per hour, which, if only weaving time is considered, makes the item seem over-priced. I finally figured out to say, "from start to finish, it took X days." If that puzzled them I could break it down to planning, measuring, warping, loom setup, weaving, dealing with the edges (hem or fringe) and finishing, plus cost of materials (which are exorbitant these days!) When calculated that way, I wasn't even making minimum wage.
I think all of this applies to most products. As consumers, we only see what's in front of us. We have no idea of everything that goes into producing it.
By way of comparison, in my industry when we are gowning up to enter the manufacturing core, it can take well over an hour to get everyone appropriated gowned up and into the area to start work. There is at least another hour or more of clean up and getting people out on the other end. That adds an easy two hours to the day, not to count if people have come out due time limits (for example, every four hours) or to do something prosaic like use the restroom.
The time adds up quickly.
TB, that's a good example. Nothing is as simple as it seems to produce.
I know in the most general terms how countermarche works, and that crawling under the loom to tie up is what many weavers dread, particularly as we get older and stiffer. But I had no idea it's this complicated, (at least while reading - if I were in front of the mechanism, it may make more sense, as someone who has a hard time reading about weaving over being shown,) and that there were this many crucial points to check/adjust. But at least the shed will "settle" into a safe setup once you adjust the heights. And I do know once set up, it gives a more generous shed with easier/lighter treadling than jack, is that right?
I once thought about getting an eight-shaft Ashford jack, but decided against it because I had enough problems lifting even three shafts on a four-shaft jack, (not Ashford.) For a long time I've been weaving on it standing up so I can put more weight on my foot.
So, suffice it to say, all this work will have been so worth it in week or two, and if you keep weaving, you won't have to overhaul but just adjust, and if you have another blank period, you now have a perfect record, as you said.
Happy dance all around, Leigh, in a week or two?! I'll bring the virtual Champaign.
Thanks Meg! lol. I confess that there have been a couple of times where I seriously wondered if I could trade this one for a jack loom instead. I now understand why experienced weavers take on interns!
Of course, I didn't specifically choose a CM loom, it just happened to be for sale at a really good price when I happened to have the money. So here I am. On the bright side, once the shafts and lamms are adjusted, they're good to go. Initial adjustments are only part of the loom set-up phase.
Yes, good sheds are an advantage to a countermarch, also it's easier to weave unbalanced weaves (so I'm told), because of how the treadles are weighted.
While I was hunting youtubes for this, I found a series of videos about tying the treadles from the top of the lamms. The gal does it entirely at the front of the loom, sitting at a comfortable height. No crawling around under the loom! I dug around for more information, which led me to ordering a back issue of Complex Weavers Journal, for an article where the idea originally came from. It will be another learning curve, but one that I think will be worth it.
Now THAT will be interesting if you don't have to get down on your hands and knees. I shall look forward to reading about it here.
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