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.

[Steve Ashton]

While the term Sabotage does come from the French word Sabot meaning a wooden shoe, there is no historical proof that wooden shoes were ever thrown into machinery or looms. But the myth persists.
What is historically documented are the Luddites. .

Luddite comes from a movement in the 19th Century Industrial Revolution among textile workers protesting the use of certain machines such "Stocking Frames". Stocking Frames are mechanical knitting machines that many claimed would destroy the guild controlled Hand-Knitters particularly the Silk Stocking Knitters. The protests were more over issues of the Industrial Revolution factory practices of worker pay, child labor, working conditions, and output quality, than about the machines themselves. The protestors adopted as their mascot a fictional leader named "Nedd Ludd" or "General Ludd". Originating around Nottingham and spreading NW though Yorkshire.

A Stocking Frame invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589.



Pre-Ludd protests started between 1768 and 1779 and the Luddites reached a peak around 1811 -1817. It all sort of came to a head soon after the "Frame Breakers Riots" of 1811-1813.

The word Luddite today refers to someone who is skeptical, distrustful of, unfamiliar with, or chooses not to use, technology.

[Father Bill]

The word Luddite today refers to someone who is skeptical, distrustful of, unfamiliar with, or chooses not to use, technology.

There are times . . . .

[Steve Ashton]

Another misconception about weaving is that not all households before the Merchant and Trade Guilds and/or the Industrial Revolution, had their own floor loom that we would recognize today, capable of weaving Tartan fabric in commercial lengths. Most homes pre-1700 were simply not large enough to fit a large, complex machine, that would only be used after enough Yarn was prepared. However, much of the preparation of the weaving yarns such as the skirting, cleaning, carding or combing, spinning, dying, and washing are very suited to home works.

A person could spin, by hand which is very time consuming, in a very small corner of a home, during all weather, in the evenings by fire or candlelight, and by almost anyone.

Vertical, Warp-Weighted, and Back-Strap style looms have been around a very long time. Wool, Linen and Lindsy/Woolsy, and Silk could, of course, be woven on looms that were capable of breaking-down and stored until needed. But many of this style loom produced narrower widths in smaller quantities, and often required more than one person, than the horizontal floor looms we think of today. Religious Monasteries were quit common places for looms as they had the manpower and space for looms. At one time Lindsey/Woolsy, (a blend of wool and Linen), was the most popular and common fabric produced in the home for home use.

In very rural areas it was not uncommon for weavers to have a loom, capable of large scale fabric production, on the back of a wagon and travel from village to village. The yarns which had been prepared all winter in homes would then be woven into fabric in just a few days. The weaver would then pack up the loom and travel to the next village where enough yarn to warp a loom had been accumulated.
It was also common for yarns prepared in homes, to be transported to weaving 'factories' that would then sell the fabric.

[NHhighlander]

Thank you, again. I had no idea that use of machines in weaving had been that early! Wow, 1589! In a constructivist cognitive process, I fit this knowledge within previous established facts of technology and history that guide my action. Too bad for the saboteur currently accepted and recognized etymology, ma se non e vero... Funny thing, I did hear a first hand account from someone who actually did bang with his shoe the door of a Minister's office during a protest, as would be the Littre etymology as per Wikipedia. LOL.

A person could spin, by hand which is very time consuming, in a very small corner of a home, during all weather, in the evenings by fire or candlelight, and by almost anyone.

Talking about knowledge and cognition and even atavistic/subconscious motivators, not to correct what you say but to add to and confirm, I can personally vouch that spinning can be even more extensive that that, as my early childhood was amongst maybe some of the hardest working people in the world, Bolivian highlands mothers. These ladies would bring their meager produce to market wrapped in a blanket/arisaid that also carried their child, lay down said piece of handspun/homemade fabric on the floor as their "market stall," sitting there for the whole day. All the while, spinning with a drop spindle. Not just mothers, but any female, so tender and between cute and pathetic to see young girls practicing doing "women work" this way. Sometimes even a male, but rarely, as those are supposed to be working the fields, but, if you must wait, why not make the wait productive by spinning? Did I see this a hundred times? Maybe ten thousand, as a market would have dozens and dozens of them. Did I really pay attention, even once? Not that I can recall. Embarrassing, how one (or at least I) just passes by something that seems part of the environment, built-in, unaware that it's a vital part of a universe that, as it turns out when seen from a million light years away, is anything but universal.
I have no doubt that Scottish Highlands people did it that way also, intense productive work at every available moment. I might doubt the candlelight detail, though. Candles are/were expensive...
Oh, of course I had not the slightest clue that I ever would be weaving for keeps and get to care deeply about "silly" things like rate of spin, thickness of yarn, etc., when those concepts are entirely bypassed by modern users of fabric, just a built-in part of their environment, undeserving of attention It feels good to be among people who understand some of these things.

[NHhighlander]

And the sun went around one more time but didn't get to see much new, even though there was increased peace, yet under tension.

My original flying shuttle race didn't work. Simple to find the basic problem and the culprit, I had overextended my lines of credit, trying to fly without a paddle. Enough silly puns. What do I know of flying shuttles? "Maybe" I saw a flying shuttle when I was 5 years old in Santiago de Chile (I don't have a full visual memory of that event, but the audio "clack, clack" somehow popped up), but that's all for actual knowledge. Youtubes don't count, though watching Marion Campbell and Peter E. MacDonald weaving, using flying shuttles, is a joy. I did link to Mrs. Campbell's, here is my fav P.E.MacDonald video, highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR1AUqVcfZo

One resource that I found had actual plans for the flying shuttle... But I didn't follow those, sigh, just my memory of what I had seen in that website.
Then, yesterday I felt that I had to do it right. French website CVMT.com, defunct in 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20070914...construire.htm Beware! as far as I know the files available for download there are infected, NEVER download an .exe file that pretends it's a PDF or document file. But perhaps the site itself is safe, I hope so, , because I go there often... The link here gets to a normal web page in French, the offered document files (perhaps dangerous) are for the version in some kind of creative Americain, elsewhere in the website. Nice folks, too bad they are gone.

Anyway. On right, first version, made from my memory of CVMT. Races are way too short. Rats also, obviously.
On left, second version, after taking a good look at CVMT's plans. Length of races there are 15.5 inches. They don't say about the rats, but longer races allows longer rats, so there.


Further work showed that there are possibilities, while the first version clearly didn't give much hope.
That additional testing later got the shuttle to go across. With issues, but at least it doesn't just fly somewhere else entirely. Testing also confirmed what Steve had said that I had doubted, you do need extra 6 feet of width because of the elastic arms that pull the rats back into start position after each pull.

I can pretend I know what was going on. Essentially, the shuttle travels because Newton. A force applied in one straight direction (by pulling the rat with the rope) transfers to the shuttle, which, if there are no other forces, will proceed in a straight line. Short races and short rats means more chances for the initial impetus to not be quite straight. Once the shuttle starts crooked, there is no reason to expect it to get to destination. QED affirms he smugly.

As to myself, did I learn something? I guess, says he humbly.
However, the skill, the joy to create and innovate is my gumption, my superpower. I'm not afraid of making this kind of mistakes, those that I can walk out of by simply grabbing another piece of rescued wood (my rats are now from genuine 100% pallet wood) and carving it some. It even gets me the opportunity for another one of my own improvements . Again? Yes. Eppur si muove, most appropriate quote regarding a moving object from that unrepentant innovator a few years ago.