I have a question which I hope you can help me with. I can provide pictures later if that would help. I bought this loom used a couple of years ago. I think the woman said it was stored in a garage. I’m guessing that the loom is at least 20 years old since she said she stopped weaving when her son was born and her son looked to be college-age. I thought it was in great shape when I first looked at it.
I got it home, cleaned it up, tightened all the screws and bolts and when I tied on the first warp I noticed that the legs of the floating breast beam don’t quite hang the same. If the left one is perpendicular to the floor, the right one is kicked slightly forward about half an inch or so. The right leg is also splayed outward about a quarter to a half an inch to the right compared to the other leg. I rotated the breast beam by 180 degrees and there was no change. I also switched the legs and there was no change. I made some measurements on the arms that extend horizontally from the castle and from which the legs hang. On both sides, the arms dip downward toward the floor, but more-so on the left side. In fact, sometimes the leg on the left will scrape the foot beam. The beater is also slightly warped, but I only notice it when I lay the beater against the castle slowly since the left side makes contact before the right. I swapped the beater legs right for left, and there was no change, the right side was still slightly forward compared to the left. I’m happy to report that none of my projects has come out crooked. However, I’ve only done about 5 projects and they have all been short (warps less than 4 yards) and narrow (20″ or less).
Will I have tension issues or crooked weavings if I attempt longer projects, wider warps or have more shafts? Is there any way to fix the loom, or is there no need to do it?
I think we can get that loom up and running perfectly.
That breast beam evens out the tension on the warp when the shed is open and if the legs are out a smidge it won’t matter one little bit. I think the easiest thing to try in regards to evening out the legs is to adjust the length of the texsolv cord that attaches the leg to the springs at the back of the loom. That may be the only thing you have to do. If one leg is sticking out in front then shorten the cord and that will bring it in. In regards to the beater, I would take it off the loom and lay in on the floor and loosen the bolts on both sides. Then retighten them, a little on one side and a little on the other. The beater may not be square just because it has been tightened too much on one side. My intuition also tells me that if you have had no crooked cloth with the loom to this point, you won’t even if your warp is longer.
