I'm a yard or so into my 13.5 yard warp on the new Schacht.
Observations, for anyone considering a new loom: On the plus side: My selvages were immediately better than on the Harrisville, though the shuttles, threads, and throwing techniques are all the same. I think it's the thick wooden apron rods on the Schacht, rather than a bendable metal rod. I feel much better about my weaving skills, now :) The loom is truly solid as a rock. It's a delight to weave on something that will never sway in the breeze. The loom comes with tieup cords for EVERY lamm/treadle position, 96 altogether for mine (8 shafts x 12 treadles). This is awesome, makes tieups for something like summer and winter much more doable. The brake seems to work well so far. The drum is steel, the cable is some sort of twisted steel wire. It's clearly built to last, just like everything else on the loom. On the frustrating side: Threading is harder on the Schacht than the Harrisville. I'm still waiting to hear their reaction to my email suggesting they make the beater removable (first response: you'll get used to it). The tieups of shafts 7 and 8 were coming undone, which is a major source of frustration for me--it was a perennial problem on the Harrisville, and seems an unacceptable issue with any loom. Fortunately, my daughter is great at thinking outside the box :) She noted that rubber bands on the ends of the treadles would keep the tieup cords from slipping out of the slots. She was right, works great. Still annoys me that it's necessary, though. I have to crawl around on the floor behind the loom to change the tieups. NOT a favorite thing to do. But now I understand why the warp beam is so close to the back beam--has to be, to allow space for the weaver to get under there. The loom is extraordinarily noisy. The shafts bang down at full speed, crashing onto a totally inadequate padding. I'm going to look into trying some other kind of padding, but I'm not hopeful. I placed some wool felt on both sides and treadled, and it was just as noisy. This is a real issue, as our house has an open floor plan with the two bedrooms adjacent to the studio area, so I can't weave now when someone is sleeping or watching TV. The beater won't take just any size reed. I use an old 6 dent reed quite a bit. It had to be wedged into the beater because it's only 4.25 inches tall--the beater needs a reed to be a minimum of 4.5 inches to fit properly. The tool tray has to be removed from the loom in order to remove the shafts so that heddles can be added or subtracted from the heddle bars. If I'd known that, I probably would have not bothered with the tool tray. I would still keep the high castle, though, as it is where I anchor the raddle for beaming the warp. To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
