Trouble in Mac-land

Weaving of the towels is nearly done. But I've run into a glitch with the shafts. It's not a new problem - I've experienced this on every warp with this loom. I'm hoping someone out there can help. To recap - this loom was previously owned by a local weaver who passed on. I suspect the loom was either never used or rarely used. I was given the original invoice - it was manufactured in 1990. If it was sitting idle - that's a lot of years of deferred maintenance.

The problem is that sometimes when a treadle is pushed, one of the shafts (it varies which specific one) that ISN'T supposed to lift will partially lift. I can hand push the offender down to where it belongs - it feels "tight" like it was squeezed by the surrounding shafts into lifting. In other words, it's definitely not a case of something catching and lifting it. It's probably best to show you.

This is what I should see.


The black bar in the background is the top of the shaft that's partially lifting.


When there's a sticky shaft, the shed looks like this. You can see strings from the stuck shaft hanging out there in the middle.


I suspect the loom needs some lubrication. When I first got this loom I asked about that. Some suggested WD40; others suggested actual oil; and one suggested paraffin. Since my loom sits over carpet, I went with paraffin. I suspect it didn't work so well. It's the metal parts that I suspect need some help; I'm not sure wax was the right choice. Or maybe I just didn't do it right.

I have both WD40 and oil. In fact, I have some spinning wheel oil in one of those long needle bottles. Which do I use? And where do I put it?

Wide Warp

The current project on the Macomber is a 40" wide warp of 5/2 cotton that will use UKI Bamboo (roughly 5/4) in the weft. They're intended to be beach towels for dh's co-worker. The pattern is a modified 5 shaft huck lace. I say modified because I had to put some of the threads from shaft 4 onto a spare shaft (in this case, shaft 6) because I knew I'd run out of heddles. I also put a plain weave selvage onto shafts 7 and 8.

One fear I had with this project was possibly having trouble with throwing a shuttle on such a wide warp. Luckily, I had treated myself to a Bluster Bay end feed shuttle at the recent CNCH conference. Before going to the conference, dh had given me $100 to treat myself. Oh boy, what a treat this pretty thing is!

The shuttle feels so incredibly soft - the craftsmanship is impeccable! And look at these selvages - they're perfect. Another benefit is that weaving goes uber-fast! I'm able to weave up a bobbin's worth in the same time it takes to wind both of the empty pirns I have for this shuttle.

Long Lost Bamboo Towels

This morning someone on the weaving at yahoogroups email list asked about weaving with bamboo as warp. Last Fall I did a series of huck towels in bamboo on my counterbalance. It was the last thing I wove on that loom before moving it to the garage for storage. (As much as I'd love to have two working floor looms available to use, there are three other people in this house and they deserve room to live too.) But a search for my post on these towels came up empty handed. I guess it was one of those things "I should write about" that never made it to "Publish Post". I'll have to fix that!

Here is a picture of 2 of the towels. The one on the left has been wet finished but not ironed. It does 'grow' a bit once it's ironed. The one to the right (and half of it is under the one on the left) has been turned sideways and is not yet wet finished.

I used UKI Bamboo (aka Bamboodle) from Village Spinning and Weaving as warp and weft. It's quite thick - listed as a 5.24/4 yarn. I sleyed 16 inches set it at 12 epi. My notes say the warp was 3 yards long but it's likely a bit longer than that - rounding up is a good thing to do with warps so that I have enough room to do some samples. My plan was for 4 towels at 22" per towel plus loom waste. Turns out I got 5 towels out of the warp.

The pattern is a traditional huck lace from Davison's "A Handweaver's Pattern Book" on page 94. I played with the pattern and found I could get a plain weave selvage. I also discovered I could change up the huck pattern by changing the treadling. This was a welcome discovery because it meant I could make every towel a bit different.

So, for the final stats:
on loom: 16" wide by about 22" long (depends on the pattern I used)
off loom: 13" wide by 20" long (for one specifically)
wet finished and ironed: 11.5" wide by 14.5" to 15.5" long

The concerned individual wrote to the group worried about abrasion - would commercially spun bamboo hold up as a warp. My counterbalance loom has wire heddles and in the past has shredded novelty, handspun yarns. Thankfully the commercially spun bamboo was completely unfazed. So yes, bamboo works very well as a warp.