Thursday 21 January 2016

Looming Changes for Cariboo Handwoven - Part 2

Following last week's Part 1 post, the new loom is assembled and ready to go. The old loom in its new location has already pumped out 12 bath towels, and I'm looking forward to continuing on it. Many of the bath towels are custom orders, the most I've ever received at a time.

The loom assembly went pretty well. Leclerc had included all the required screwdrivers and a wrench, but some of the assembly really needed an electric drill - and drill operator. Thank you so much to Pat for all his help. Final stages were done with Jon's help and his natural ingenuity with the important brake system. Thanks, guys!

You can see the differences between the older version of the Leclerc Colonial loom below:



... And the v2 model shown in the next two photos. It has the treadles mounted at the back, not the front, and a totally revamped jack loom assembly with nothing in the centre of the warp. The old loom has always worked well for me but I'm very curious to find out how the new version works.

Winding first section onto new Leclerc Colonial v2 loom

The Colonial v2 has a completely different harness assembly from the original model

I've already noticed that the v2 has a higher back beam which means less bending over to fuss with the tension box when warping. Already a good start.

What a great time for me in my weaving career. To those who have asked if I'll use the two looms - you betcha! Or at least that's the plan now. I hope to stagger projects on each, so when I need a break from warping one loom I can weave on another. I rarely want to go from weaving to warping, but that will be necessary at times. Or, I can have a really long towel warp on the old loom to pick at when the urge strikes. We'll see how it goes.


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