Category: Looms

One day last summer, as I was casually browsing the looms on Ebay, I came across the Loom of All Looms – a 60″, 16 shaft, 18 treadle J-Made with double warp beams, worm gears, and rear hinged treadles, plus tons of accessories. I knew immediately that it was meant to be mine.

I marched right out of the house and across the street to our neighbor’s driveway, where Chad was having a conversation.

“I found The Loom,” I informed him.

“Cool! Where is it?”

“Oregon,” I said, and turned to walk away.

“How are you going to get it?” He laughed. It was understandable, since we live in Florida.

“I don’t know,” I called, “That’s for you to figure out! I just know that’s The Loom!”

As it turns out, it’s not so easy getting a 6′ loom across the country. The seller wasn’t able to ship it or even take it apart, which really limited my options. First, I tried posting the listing on Uship. The quotes came in! I was thrilled until I actually read them. No way was I paying $4,000+ just for freight.

Next, I tried placing my own price. I waited and waited, but no one was interested.

As a last resort, I looked into a UHaul shipping container, but that was pretty pricey and I still had to pay someone to pack it up and load it in.

Finally, after nearly three months, I almost gave up. As a last ditch effort, I posted in a Facebook group looking for help. It was suggested I contact Eugene Textile Center, so contact them I did. It turns out they do this sort of thing all the time, and the quote was within my price range! I couldn’t believe this could actually happen.

I made an offer on the loom right away. It expired after only 12 hours with nothing response or counter offer. I was worried the seller never saw it because of the time difference, so I sent her a message.

Time passed, still no response. I was devastated. To be so close, and miss out! I had to know if she’d seen my message and offer. Finally I hit Facebook.

Fortunately, she had a unusual name. I found her right away and wrote to her. She responded quickly. She was so nice! She hadn’t seen the offer or message, but she would accept it! I still couldn’t believe this could actually happen.

Arrangements were made for ETC to pick up the loom and enormous amount of accessories it came with. Suzie, the owner, went down with help, and loaded it all up.

Less than a week later, it was packed into a crate and headed my way. I still couldn’t believe this could actually happen.

Then it arrived! The crate was enormous and weighed in at 900 pounds. It barely fit in the spot we’d cleared in our garage.

The next day, we opened it up.

Nine hours later, it had a spot in what had suddenly become my loom room…and I can finally believe it could happen.

After quite a bit of long, hard work, my loom puzzle is nearly complete! I mentioned last time I’d managed to clean and wax the loom, along with doing a good bit of assembling with Chad’s help. The next work session we replaced the bent metal treadle bar. Then we carefully assembled the lamm cables from 1/16″ metal cable, ferrules, stops, and believe it or not, jewelry crimps to prevent them from coming out of the lamms. We also nailed new apron ribbons onto the cloth beam. We left the warp beam alone because it will become a sectional later.

The next step was to repair and assemble the bench. The top was split on either side, so we screwed metal braces into the wooden top to keep it together. It seems pretty sturdy now and since the braces are on the underside they aren’t seen or felt. After repairing the bench Chad took the heddle support bars outside and used the electric sander to remove all the rust. They looked great when he was finished.

To help the heddles slide easily I treated them with cold blue, aka gun blue. This is a chemical treatment that oxidizes the surface of the steel bars and leaves them a beautiful black. However it doesn’t prevent rust, so I followed it with a wiping of 3-in-1 multi purpose oil. Look at the difference!

Once the heddle support bars were finished I was able to assemble the shafts with the bars and new heddles. Then they were hung using new Texsolv cord and arrows, and attached to the lamm cables we assembled previously.

 

Once the shafts were hung we were able to tie up the treadles with the treadle chains. Then I cut and melted holes in the ribbons on the cloth beam and added the new steel apron bar that Chad cut for me. I ordered the remaining parts, excluding what we need to build the sectional beam, from Harrisville Designs and they are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Hopefully the next time I post about this loom it will be finished and ready for weaving!

After a long week, and with a lot of help from my youngest, I managed to wash and wax every piece of my loom puzzle. I used Murphy’s oil soap diluted in water to do the washing, and boy, did it need it! The water was so brown I had to change it after only half the loom was washed.

After I got it all nice and clean I used SC Johnson Finishing Wax to moisturize and protect the wood. It’s amazing the difference the wash and wax make.

We made a not-so-quick trip to to a couple of hardware stores for some parts and then worked on putting the pieces back together. It’s finally looking like a loom!

There is still quite a bit to be done, but seeing it mostly reassembled is encouraging. Next time we will attempt to put together the treadles and repair the bench. Hopefully those go as smoothly as the assembly today.