New old loom for weaving tartan

[NHhighlander]

So I came up with a Tape loom based on a Jack Loom. I call this a 20 shaft tape loom.

I was able to weave this hat band in one day including the time to warp the loom.

Hey Steve,
One word:
WOW!
I'll look at the rest later (just glancing at emails as I came for a tool inside, but I can already see there's substance there. But this loom... Respect. Admiration. Hats off, with flourish. Etc.)

[NHhighlander]

Four have passed already? Uh.
But, this was an exciting one. The loom is coming to life! OK, just so, but, then, this is the first floor loom I've ever actually pushed the pedals on, I feel quite happy! ("like a puppy wagging two tails," we say in Uruguay)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nXUQAKw7Ov4

Those strings took a LOT of time (plastic stand-in, for sanity-testing purposes). It was nice and cool in the morning, no frustration, I came prepared, somewhere I had read something along the lines that the mounting is trifficult. So. It was.

@Steve_Ashton, thank you for sharing those mounting the shafts schemes (and thank you for so much else). I went instead for the hanging-pulley system, here in the picture from that amazing volume that arrived yesterday, Warping & Dressing the Early Hand Loom, based on the teaching of "Norman (Kennedy, who) brought with him the expertise and techniques that he had gleaned from watching the last of the rural handweavers in Scotland." I should make a review of the book for that sector of our forums where we do that, for now I'll just put the website link to the publishers, a weaving school started my Mr. Kennedy https://www.weaverscroft.net .

Indeed, I had seen some similar arrangements to those that you shared, in books and the web, but, there being so many options my brain shut down, so I went with my own simplified interpretation of the pulley system which I had seen in real life and became confident with, a couple moths ago in a c.1910 floor loom that I was repairing. As I paraphrase what you say, it's all in absorbing the tradition and knowledge, and then tweaking perhaps. Funny enough, Scarlett (op.cit.), tells how, early on as a loom builder, he made modifications to the loom plans that he had obtained, and later, through experience, figured out that he needed to undo those innovations... We'll see!(TM)

Otherwise, day 4 saw the structure for the flying shuttle, the races, the rats. Of course impatient to test it, but I had to go right then.
I did test it the morning after, and... Ahem. Not quite. But that comes in the Day 5 report.





Oh, also, detail in the picture, my own DIY shuttle, and behind it, a (maybe early 1800s? Could be even older?) real reed reed. Surprisingly, these museum pieces are available on eBay for less than a contemporary metal reed, go figure. I got mine as an add-on to a purchase I made, lucky me, and a perfect addition for the day I am showing off the "reconstruction."

Steve, don't worry too much about my insistence on a flying shuttle. I see it as a good-to-have, wonderful actually, because efficient production is SO nice (you yourself made that a-ma-zing improvement on the concept of the inkle loom, for that very reason. I do so love that 20-shaft loom of yours, made my day). My take is that, if my flying shuttle fails (and it might...), nobody died. I'll be weaving single-width, 25 inches, therefore a manual shuttle is a perfectly valid option to fall back gracefully. (LOL, for the fictional story of my Nova Scotia 1780s weaver, I can now add that he was kicked out because he adopted the flying shuttle, when all the colleagues in the area considered that device a direct, English-inspired demonic attack on their livelihood, in a parallel chain of events to the "saboteurs" who were throwing their sabot shoes into the first Jacquard looms a few years later).

[jsrnephdoc]

Four have passed already? Uh.

…

Otherwise, day 4 saw the structure for the flying shuttle, the races, the rats. Of course impatient to test it, but I had to go right then.
I did test it the morning after, and... Ahem. Not quite. But that comes in the Day 5 report.

Just one question: do you have ANY time for… sleep?

I'd ask more, but I'd be SO far out of my depth as to just embarrass myself.

[NHhighlander]

Just one question: do you have ANY time for… sleep?

I'd ask more, but I'd be SO far out of my depth as to just embarrass myself.

ROFL!
The answer being, no.
Sleep is SO overrated... I'm ADHD, and manage some times to leverage that as my superpower, even though it's also my kryptonite. Also, I have an amazing wife that keeps me grounded.

Hey, feel free to. We're kind of kin, Robertsons and Duncans, right?, by message if you prefer.

Thank you. While, as a former Rugby coach (ARCO Cup, 1986), I "know" and (used to) teach how to fall and keep rolling so the momentum helps you get up, and this project is/will be full of "failures" (that flying shuttle might actually not work for me), it's always so encouraging to get into the fun-banter level of connection.