Hello, everyone,
You probably thought I vanished off this mortal coil. In fact,
we have been terminally busy getting a greenhouse/sunroom built and
organized before the cold weather sets in. I hope the messages
below
will in part make up for my lack of keeping up.
I wish all of you the happiest and healthiest of holidays and all the
best
in the coming year, decade, century, and millenium.
Do let us know what's coming off your loom!
Cheers,
Tom.
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Subject: J-Made Digest
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 21:29:09 -0700
From: "Sally Breckenridge" <sallyb@weaveit.com>
Hi all,
I thought it would be fun to tell everyone about my visit the JMade
"factory" or Dale Johnson's workshop in "sunny" Oregon. I refer
to the
Oregon style of sun which is rain. It was rather a gloomy day
but the
country side around Oregon City is beautiful. For a couple of
moments the sun actually did come out and the fall leaves (they are
still on the trees here in Oregon) were beautiful.
Dale has all kinds of impressive wood working tools in his shop.
I know
my husband would be terribly impressed. I mean these tools
were not the little power tools you find in the garage workshop.
There
were several 4 foot sander belt sitting around the sander.
Makes my husband's sander look pretty pitiful. I saw lots of
loom parts
in parts of the shop. I must admit I was quite impressed with
how organized everything was. I suppose with that type of business
you
have to be organized but my office and weaving studio are not
so. And oh the beautiful woods. I don't think I have ever
seen so much
lovely hard woods. The current loom being set up is Oregon
Black Walnut and I mean it is gorgeous. So to who ever is getting
that
loom, you will really like it.
I got a lesson on how the mechanics of the loom work. Dale set
up the
unit that is underneath the loom, on the table so I could easily
see how it operates and how to adjust it when necessary. It always
helps me to understand how it actually works. Of course it make
me want to hurry home to finish threading my current project and adjust
the loom. Actually maybe I just want to smooth my hands over
the beautiful wood.
Sally
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Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 17:51:23 EST
From: DJohns4908@aol.com
It seems around here that the only thing that I've been successful at
raising is trees. Although we do enjoy the wildlife, deer, racoons,
rabbits, pheasants and other critters that come wandering through our
yard. The deer have done a wonderful job of cleaning up the remaining
fruit from the ground in our orchard, and there's usually a doe and
a
fawn that greet us each evening when we come down the driveway standing
under an apple tree.
On the topic of looms, I have recently acquired a fairly large number
of
Pentium 75 computers. I have decided to furnish one free with each
J-Comp
ordered. These are really nice Hewlett-Packard computers with 850 meg
hard-drives, 32 megs of ram and both CD rom and floppy drives. This
will
allow me to furnish the loom with the cards already installed and tested
with a computer that will ultimately run it. Although these are not
the
latest and fasted computers available now they are certainly far in
excess of what is needed to run the loom. Of course, they have the
much
needed ISA expansion slots. These will also be furnished with a
roll-away
stand that will support the computer, keyboard and monitor.
I hope to see many great things coming off your loom!
Happy Holidays!
Dale
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From: Tom Vogl
Hi, Everybody,
I have been busy beaming our J-comp (one inch sections) with 10.5 yards
of a somewhat sticky camel-silk mixture (3000 yds/lb) at 48 epi. (This
will turn into double woven blankets.) I'm about half done and I thought
a report of my (mis)adventures might be of help to some of you.
I am
also eagerly soliciting comments on how to do it better/easier/quicker.
I will include some tips that I discovered the hard way, although many
of you are probably way ahead of me.
I am using a modified Louet tension box fed by 48 spools with 540 yards
onboard of each on a no-name 72 spool rack from Robin&Russ that
is quite
satisfactory.
Tip # 1: Put a raddle about 2-3 feet in front of the tension box (sticks
and C-clamps are great) and about half way up the spool rack.
Be sure
that the thread from each spool does not twist around any of the other
threads from other spools. Be sure that all the spools unwind in the
same direction.
For the first few sections I used a half inch elelctric drill
(500 rpm)
to turn the 1/2" shaft that drives the worm, after taking the had crank
off. (Note: the corkscrew-like gear on the shaft is the 'worm'; the
gear
on the beam driven by the shaft is the 'worm gear'.) I found
that 500
rpm (which translates to 500/40 = 12.5 rpm of the beam) is really too
fast for comfort -- about half that speed is ideal.
I did take an extension cord and put a push-button switch into the line
so that I could have the drill lying on a foam pad on a table at the
front of the loom and control the loom from the back end (by locking
the
drill into run and using the pushbutton to activate it).
There are a number of advantages to doing this:
There is a considerable difference between the force needed to overcome
friction when the two things sliding over each other (thread over
tensioning devices) and to start them sliding in the first place. (You
can find this discussed in physics/mechanical engineering books under
'static' and 'sliding' friction. Therefore the steady motion
of
constant speed turning is very effective in producing an even warp
tension on the beam, but cranking by hand is out of the question (48
sections X 10.5 turns X 40 worm ratio = 20,160 turns of the crank!).
It avoids the problem of trying to line up the tensioning device with
the section while the beam is slid over to engage the worm but then
has
to be moved over to disengage it. There is also a problem that
the beam
can easily slide over a bit while being pushed by hand to turn it,
throwing the relationship of the tensioning device and the beam off.
This, in turn, causes the section pins to catch warp threads.
It is also easier on the arms and the back.
However, we quickly discovered that there is a very serious drawback
to
the mechanization, namely that the worm gear on the J-comp is not case
hardened. (In my youth all worm gears were case hardened, because the
worm slides across the face of the teeth to push the gear forward.)
So,
after only four sections, we had worn away almost 1/32" of the face
of
the gear. Not good because one has to take the side beams off
the loom
(essentially take the beam off) to replace the work gear!!! (I
estimate
that the pull on the warp was about 30 pounds.)
So, I am back to turning the beam by hand and making sure that I am
pulling laterally away from the work as I turn the beam, to keep it
lined up with the tension box.
Despite these problems, the one inch sectional and a good tension box
is
infinitely easier to use than a warping board and trying to warp across
48 inches by hand. It takes us about 18 minutes per section to
attach
the warp bundle to the texsol line, adjust the tension box line-up
with
the section, wind on 10 1/2 turns, pick up a cross and tie it carefully,
and tape the section down. Don't let anyone tell you (as some
books do)
that you do not need a cross when you sectionally warp. What you do
not
need is spacers between warp layers unless your set is coarse and your
threads are fine, so that threads can fall into the cracks. It used
to
take us a long time to pick up the cross, but Katherine now uses two
crochet hooks and can pick up the cross for 48 ends in just a couple
of minutes. (I am also working on a method using two sets of three
inch
long heddles, each in their own frame, to pick up the cross. (I have
since found out that this is called a Heck box.) This will allow one
to 'slay' the tension box once and pick up the cross at each section
just by lifting one or the other of the miniature frames.
The breakdown (I timed it) is approximately as follows (if all works
perfectly):
1.5 minutes to adjust the tension box to the section
3.75 minutes for 10.5 turns (by hand)
11.25 minutes to make the five ties and pick up the cross
2.0 minutes to cut the warp, tape it down, tie a new
knot and
attach it to the texsol line.
So, more than half the time is spent on the cross and most of that time
(about 3/4's, now that Katherine is a speed demon at picking up the
cross with her crochet hooks - I estimate it took her at least 10
minutes the first time and she is now down to about 3 minutes on the
actual picking up) is spent threading a needle, bringing thread around
the various bundles, and making and trimming the five knots it takes
to
define the cross. Any suggestions?
It is only fair to mention that 18 minutes per inch with no cussing
is
lightning speed compared to trying to put 10 yards at 15 epi from a
warping board onto a 36 inch loom without sections and mucho cussing
and
a very sloppy warp at the end of it all. The last warp on the
J-comp
(20 yards of 20/2 cotton at 36 epi across 30 inches) went equally
smoothly (Using a 3/8" drill and an unsatisfactory adapter between
the drill and the shaft) as the current warp and was such a flat,
consistent beaming that at the end of the 20 yards of weaving only
the selveges had weights on them. We were, quite frankly, astounded.
Enough for now - I have to go and do the 30th section.
Cheers,
T.
P.S. You can see the beginning of a series of pictures of the
loom and
the warping at: http://www.photopoint.com/
On photopoint's home page, look for the slot (on the left) that says
'view a members album' e-mail. Type in Katherine's e-mail, which is
kcl@world.std.com and click on Weaving:warping when her page comes
up.
That will bring up thumbnails that you can click on for larger
versions. You are also welcome to poke around elsewhere.
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