A Loom Shaped Object, Part 2

In the last chapter, I'd gotten the loom built, but had some doubts as to whether it was really a loom.  At that point, I decided to just go for it:  the goal was to see if it could be made to work, not to see if it ever worked before.

As you may or may not know, countermarche looms are... complicated.  This one is a horizontal countermarche, meaning there's a cord that goes up through the middle of the warp to the jacks, and there are two jacks for every shaft.  I'd gotten as far as the previous owner ever had already.  She got it built, but never tied it up or put a warp on it.

In the spirit of just moving ahead as quickly as I could, I put some 10 1/2" heddles on two shafts, used loops of poly cord to hold them up, and tied everything together.  In the end the shafts went up and down when I pushed the treadles, so I guess I did it right! (Eventually, after some trial and error.)  In all honesty it wasn't that bad:  two shafts and two treadles limits me to doing plain weave, but also means I only need to tie the treadles to the lamms in four places.

The next step was putting a warp on, and I hit a snag there.  See, traditionally these looms are warped back to front, by sitting inside the frame.  Unfortunately, this one doesn't really have space to sit comfortably inside with the warp beam installed, and there's not a practical way to move the shafts to the back without building a whole new structure.  Also, going back to front works best with a raddle and lease sticks, and I don't have those in the right size, and even if I did there'd be nowhere to put them.  So I warped front to back.  It worked, although not as well as I'd hoped, and I was able to get a few inches of test weave done!

First weave on the countermarche loom. The fell isn't straight, and it's clearly out of tension.

It wasn't perfect -- the tension was off, and the beater kept slipping off parallel -- but it worked!  Encouraged by partial success, I cut off the section I'd just woven, and tied back on, taking some care with the tension.  I though about how to solve the problem of the beater, and decided the traditional solution was best, but too complicated.  So instead I nailed some little bits of oak to the frame, to stop the beater from sliding.

Small stop blocks on top of a loom

This worked as well as I'd hoped:  the beater is still easy to move from one stop to the next, which means I can move it around while working, but it doesn't slide on its own, and it stays parallel.

I also adjusted the cords holding up the treadles, how the lamms were tied up, and a few other things.  Once that was done, I gave it a second try.  Success!

Fabric being woven, with a shuttle sitting on the warp.

You can see in the middle where I made a change to how the beater was hanging, and how it got much more even after that.

So the test proved out:  whether or not it's ever been used before, it's now usable.

The next step is to distribute the heddles among four shafts, and replace the cord I've used with Texsolv.  Then comes the part I'm dreading:  tying up six treadles to four shafts.  I'm planning a tie-up that will allow me to do both tabby and 2/2 twill, which should do what I want for quite a while.  Then on to weaving the next couple yards of warp!





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