Assembly

All the clean, dry pieces lined up in the shed

Post-assembly on 10 June 2012

Sunday afternoon, Dan and I went to the Garrison House for a little loom assem-bl-y.  (Pronounced like Norm says it!)  The wood looks very pretty all cleaned up.  We had a few glitches along the way, but were able to correct them as we went (like getting it together and then realizing that the back beam was still on the floor behind us - doh!)  We took lots of measurements so Dan could work on a few replacement parts: 3 wedges, a pin for the brake, treadles, and some wooden screws.

There are several reeds of varying dents.  I'll talk about those on another day.  There's also 2 sides (the left and right) of  a large warping board. We couldn't find the top and bottom, but those should be easy to replicate once we've got the loom taken care of.
 
The biggest problem we ran across is the fact that the warp beam is the same length as the structural beams across the bottom and top of the back of the loom.  Of course, that means that the beam rubs on the uprights and doesn't move. This makes me wonder if the loom was actually ever used.  There are no definitive signs of wear from threads or cloth.

The warp beam is too long and rubs on the uprights.

It's a tight fit!

Me contemplating the options

 After looking at the geometry and taking some measurements, it looks like unless we want to leave the frame slightly separated (which would affect the strength and stability of the loom), we are going to have to shave down the end of the beam near the brake. We haven't done it yet, so if anyone has any other suggestion, please let us know.

Cloth beam brake mechanism

These are the only metal pieces on the loom.  Dan had to reattach the "saw blade" ratchet to the end of the beam. Oh, I think the roller in the brake pulley is also metal.

The old string heddles

Another thing that's going to take some research and time is making new heddles.  The ones that were on it are probably linen.  They are all connected, made out of a single piece of thread. Does anyone know of any existing directions on how to make these? I have access to the T-shaped pieces of a heddle and harness maker (Figure 40 of Marion Channing's "The Textile Tools of Colonial Homes".)  I do have the four wooden heddle sticks for the tops and bottoms of the harnesses.