Now I can take a deep breath (6 left to hem, then re-iron and box them
up) because the towels are virtually done (52 of them! and lessons
learned in another post <g>) and ask a few questions.
I had two warps of 21.5 yards on the Schacht. Some mistakes made, of
course, as I've never done warps quite that long before--I think 15.5
was my previous record, all on a regular, not sectional, beam.
But some issues were definitely tied to the loom itself. Some may be
common to all looms, some unique to Schacht. I wanted to ask about them
here before I add them to my letter to Schacht.
First of all, I've observed that, the long the warp, the more tension is
needed on whatever braking system is used. I've used two systems. One
is the 'cable wrapped around a drum and clumsily released by a pedal in
front friction brake'. I don't like it much, and haven't used it a
whole lot, actually. My old Harrisville had such issues with it that I
went to the warp-weight braking system early on--I think about a year
after I got the loom. Now I've had the Schacht not quite a year, and
that's the extent of my experience with friction brakes.
I found with the Schacht I was having to get up about once each towel to
adjust the tightness of the brake--in back, of course, not where I could
reach it from the front. Toward the end of a warp, sometimes 2-3 times
per towel. And on these long warps, the amount of tension needed at the
beginning made it quite a challenge to release the warp and advance it,
especially with the sharp-cut edges on the brake release handle. Is
this common experience? Did I expect too much from this loom to put
that length of warp on it?
I did try to set up my warp-weight braking system, and it looked like
the octagonal beam wasn't going to be an issue. However, the loom fell
over backwards because of the weight needed, so I've temporarily ditched
that idea. I don't feel confident I can anchor the loom to the floor
without majorly damaging the floor (manufactured house, don't go
there!), so the warp-weight system will have to wait until I have a
short warp or have figured out a way to brace the loom so it doesn't
fall over.
And then, that blasted gear on the cloth beam--it has about half as many
teeth as the one on the Harrisville, meaning there's not much finesse in
adjusting the position of the fell as I wove. It's been a pain even on
much shorter warps--my first with this loom was 13.5 yards, and the
problem was noticeable then. I put on a 3.5 yard warp a couple days ago
and it wasn't too bad then--took 4-5 teeth on the gear to advance the
warp about an inch, but on the long warps, sometimes only 2 teeth would
move the fell more than an inch, which is way too much for good weaving,
IMO. Anyone with thoughts on this?
Although Schacht sent me 9 replacement treadles earlier in the year,
toward the end of the second 21.5 yard warp, I saw two were going to
lose their #8 tieup cords toward the end of weaving. One was one that
had been replaced, one was one I had kept because it was one of the
tightest slots of my original 12 treadles. Wondering how many other
weavers are having the issue of #8 (sometimes also #7) working out of
the slot entirely, and conversely, have an untied #8 slipping into the
end of the slot of its treadle when it wasn't supposed to.
Also specific to Schacht, do the rest of you have to take off that piece
of wood that hangs by the cloth advance lever, and is intended to
depress the foot brake release pedal as needed? I found that it would
gradually swing out and establish itself on the brake release
periodically. I had to take it off entirely, which makes it a piece of
wood to find a storage place for.
Can't think of anything else at the moment. Thanks for any and all
responses!
Holly
free to SPIN again!!!! free to <gulp> work on the AVL!!!!
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