Things I Learned Last Week
There seem to be a few things specific to my loom that Learning to Weave doesn't cover. This is likely going to lead to another, probably more helpful post on the anatomy of my Macomber B5. More to the point, I think it might be more searchable for folks like me looking for an explanation of what tehse parts are without knowing what they're called. But here are the things I leraned this week:
1. My warp beam wasn't turning. I found a handle for it so I could try to turn it, which helped a bit, but what really helped was the Ravlery Macomber Looms group. I learned that the loom has a friction brake (I have really only known of ratchet brakes, so this was new to me!). Here's what that looks like:
When the friction brake is on, it's difficult to turn the warp beam. I can press on teh brake while weaving from the front of the loom, but while warping that's difficult since I'll be at the back of the loom. This lead me to lesson nubmer 2...
2. A step block is an odd piece of metal that looks like this:
This goes at the back of the loom on the brake, braced against the loom. Its job, as you might have guessed, is to keep the brake pressed down so you can easily beam the warp. I also learned this via the Ravelry Group.
3. A lamm depressor pushes the lamms at the base of the floor loom down so you can more easily tie up the tredles. After having held up all of the lams by hand to change the way the tredles on Rey were originally tied up, I have to say that I'm super excited to try to use this. It seems I'm going to have to take off the warp beam to be able to use it correctly, but here's what it looks like:
4. Only tangentially related, I am missing an apron rod, so I went to Home Depot to get a piece of steel that I could use as a new apron rod. This week I learned that steel rods come in either 3' or 4' increments, that Home Depot won't cut them if you ask them to, you need a hacksaw apparently to do that, and that oil comes off of steel with a little bit of rubbing alchol.
I think this week might focus on apron rods as I'm not sure how to handle the fact that my apron rods aren't an even distance from the beams due to the strings of the apron. This might lead to me replacing the apron strings, but I'm hoping that there might be a work around I can employ.
1. My warp beam wasn't turning. I found a handle for it so I could try to turn it, which helped a bit, but what really helped was the Ravlery Macomber Looms group. I learned that the loom has a friction brake (I have really only known of ratchet brakes, so this was new to me!). Here's what that looks like:
When the friction brake is on, it's difficult to turn the warp beam. I can press on teh brake while weaving from the front of the loom, but while warping that's difficult since I'll be at the back of the loom. This lead me to lesson nubmer 2...
2. A step block is an odd piece of metal that looks like this:
This goes at the back of the loom on the brake, braced against the loom. Its job, as you might have guessed, is to keep the brake pressed down so you can easily beam the warp. I also learned this via the Ravelry Group.
3. A lamm depressor pushes the lamms at the base of the floor loom down so you can more easily tie up the tredles. After having held up all of the lams by hand to change the way the tredles on Rey were originally tied up, I have to say that I'm super excited to try to use this. It seems I'm going to have to take off the warp beam to be able to use it correctly, but here's what it looks like:
4. Only tangentially related, I am missing an apron rod, so I went to Home Depot to get a piece of steel that I could use as a new apron rod. This week I learned that steel rods come in either 3' or 4' increments, that Home Depot won't cut them if you ask them to, you need a hacksaw apparently to do that, and that oil comes off of steel with a little bit of rubbing alchol.
I think this week might focus on apron rods as I'm not sure how to handle the fact that my apron rods aren't an even distance from the beams due to the strings of the apron. This might lead to me replacing the apron strings, but I'm hoping that there might be a work around I can employ.
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