As a long-time weaver who recently acquired a knitting machine, I am curious
if there is any reason why I could not use my weaving yarns for knitting.

Are there different characteristics between "weaving yarns" and "knitting
yarns"?

Clare
csettle@optonline.net

I have not tried to participate in this group since the changeover to yahoo.
I'm not a computer whiz, so am afraid that I might not be responding in the
proper format. Please forgive me if this is so!!

I wanted to respond to Pam Refling's problem with her AVL PDL. I have owned
one of these for less than a year and have been having the same problem. I
have talked the with woman from whom I purchased it as well as AVL. Both
agreed that I needed to make minute adjustments to the dobby head. As you
face the side of the loom with the dobby head directly in front of you, there
there are two metal plates with a small allen screw and nut in each plate. I
hope you have the big AVL notebook as this is better described in that than I
shall do! You will need to tighten or loosen one side of the dobby head,
depending on what harnesses are not raising. In the case of my loom, over
the course of 4 different warps, I discovered that my last harness or two
(number 15 and 16) sometimes didn't raise, even though my pegs were correctly
inserted in the dobby bars. What needed to be done was to tighten the screw
at the right side of the dobby head (again, as you face it), because the
right side of the dobby head corresponds to the back harnesses. So,
following the instructions in the notebook, I took a crescent wrench and
loosened the nut a quarter turn, then took an allen screwdriver and tightened
the screw a half turn, then retightened the nut. This did not work entirely
on the first try, and I've actually retightened this side of the dobby head
twice. But I am now on my fifth warp and have had no mistakes at all after
four yards of weaving! Whew! I highly recommend reading this part of the
notebook for a better description.

Good luck,

Brenda Osborn

.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions more experienced AVL users have to
offer.

Pam Refling

AVL dobbies have some basic problems with their design that can be very annoying especially at higher speeds. I would suggest you check the hight of your pegs, the occasional short dobby peg will miss shed. Also adjusting the position of the bar cylinder so that all pegs really push on the feeler bars could solve your problem. There are two threaded bolts on which the cylinder is mounted and can be adjusted in or out from the feelers.

Vincent Carleton in Elk CA.

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We have
incredible humidity changes here

That's got to be hard on any wooden item, chairs, tables,doors, looms....
Summer high humidity is hard to change, but a cheap humidity gauge will warn
you in the winter to add moisture. A pan of water near a heat source or a
small commercial unit will bring the room's humidity up to near summer
percentage. The danger is that all wood shrinks; so one tightens up some
bolts to compensate, then a few months later, the wood swells ( no warning )
and crushes some cells. The whole sequence repeats, until you have a loose
joint ( or raised wood grain ) all of the time.
The answer - try to keep the weaving room or studio near the same temp. and
humidity all year; it doesn't take expensive machinery to do this.

-- Happy Shuttling ! Bill Koepp in Central California

I also have the Compu-dobby 2 and find that each spring and fall I often
must re-adjust the dobby head to make it pick up all the shafts. We have
incredible humidity changes here and the looms are mainly wood after all.
The adjustment most often needed is on each side of the dobby box where you
use an Alan wrench and it has a locking bolt. It is often a tiny adjustment
but critical. BTY, it is usually the same shaft that doesn't lift - either
of the front ones or the very back ones so I adjust the screw on the "bad"
side. Also if say 16 or whatever isn't consistently lifting I use a post it
note attached to the top bar of the shaft [like a flag standing up] so I can
see if the shaft is lifted and need only repeat that lift.

Darlene Mulholland
darlenem@shaw.ca
www.pgmoneysaver.bc.ca/weaving/

Here are some suggestions:

- Most likely . . . Your dobby cables are not going into the finger slots .
. . Adjust the cables and check to make sure the solenoid portion of the
Compudobby is properly aligned . . . adjust according to the installation
instructions . . . each should just touch the rear of the slot where the
solenoid is extended

- Hex nuts on the adjustment brackets on the solenoid box are not tightened

- Make sure the cables are connected with the appropriate shaft

- Make sure the chains from the spring levers are connected with the
appropriate shaft

- Check each shaft cable is in its pulley

- A treadle cable may have slipped off it pulley

Good luck!

Robyn Spady
Seattle, WA

To Anyone Willing to Help:
I have an AVL PDL with a CompuDobby II. I am putting on my fourth warp and
am hoping someone will be able to give me some clues to help solve the
problem I have had with the first three.
When I am weaving a pattern (I started out with some complex twills, but
have switched to simpler patterns until I solve my problem), every few
inches, an "errant" shaft will lift, or not lift, as the case may be. This
has been very frustrating. I am trying to weave towels. I am trying to
watch the pattern as I weave and will catch the mistake some of the time,
but after weaving numerous towels, I have only a couple woven entirely
without errors (and this is because I have caught the mistake and rewove or
caught it as it happened).
To attempt to solve this on my own I have done the following:
1. Moved the heddles so they were equally distributed on the harnesses and
not too near the ends.
2. Realigned the dobby arm.
3. Put floor gripping on the treadles to ensure firm treadling.
4. Made sure to deliberately push the left treadle to reset the solenoids.
5. Cleaned the dobby filter.
6. Tightened all of the "nuts and bolts", and anything else I could find to
tighten.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions more experienced AVL users have to
offer.

Pam Refling

The question is, which do you

prefer, horizontally positioned spools or vertically positioned spools? >

I prefer the vertical cone/spool rack (mine is AVL). I buy the cardboard
spools, rip of one end and wind it like a cone. Works beautifully with no
spinning.

Angie Rockett

As a sectionally warping or warped person ;) I prefer the
horizontal mounting as it permits easy flow of the yarn/thread.

Daibh

sectional warping on some of my looms. The question is, which do you
prefer, horizontally positioned spools or vertically positioned spools?

Spools, which are side delivery yarn packages are not the best choice for
this application. A much better choice would be end delivery packages
With only very rare exception, all yarns can be used on an end
delivery package.

I see an equipment problem here. I would love to use end delivery packages for
sectional warping however I have not been able to find the equipment to wind
these packages and will not buy 80 cones of cotton (or even 40 for 1 inch
sections) for the warps I need to beam. If the equipment is available it may be
priced out of my budget. Any suggestions?

Cynthia Broughton

At 08:46 AM 11/1/01 -0600, Dianna Rose Downs <rdowns@airmail.net>

wrote:

I am going to have my husband build me a spool rack so I can return to
sectional warping on some of my looms. The question is, which do you
prefer, horizontally positioned spools or vertically positioned spools?

Spools, which are side delivery yarn packages are not the best choice for this application. A much better choice would be end delivery packages which do not rotate as yarn is delivered therefore starting and stopping speed would not have to be ramped as Laura indicates with side delivery spools. With only very rare exception, all yarns can be used on an end delivery package.

The ideal creel, in any circumstances, handloom included would be a set of end delivery packages with individual tension control on each end. In addition, provision can easily be made for leasing each of the sections. This can be designed to be very space conservative to fit in most handloom studios. With this system, warping speed is limited only by the effort of the operator.

AAF

Allen Fannin, Adj. Prof., Textiles
Retail Management & Design Technologies Dept.
215/224 Slocum Hall
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York 13244-1250
Phone: (315) 443-1256 (direct)
-4635 (dept. office)
FAX: (315) 443-5300
e-Mail: <aafannin@syr.edu>

As a sectionally warping or warped person ;) I prefer the
horizontal mounting as it permits easy flow of the yarn/thread.

A stationary, vertical cone (with a yarn guide) will deliver yarn just as easily, and has the added advantage of greater control. If you
don't want to take Allen's word for it, take a look at businesses that use lots of string. Shirt laundries and bakeries, for example, use
string to tie up packages, and they always have the cone positioned vertically, with a yarn guide over the center of the cone. I assume
it's because they have found that this setup is the most convenient.

Janet

I have both (the horizontal rack is being actively stored in
my studio!) and prefer the vertical as it can also hold cones.
Doug also built me a stand that will hold up to 36 of the large
(one pound?) cones. The Leclerc horizontal rack will hold 40
spools or half pound tubes, the Leclerc vertical rack will hold
50. Doug added one more rail to the very top so I can do 60
spools if being pulled off the side.

Some yarns like to be pulled off the side, some can be pulled
off the top. If I have to break packages down, I'll often
wind the yarn onto the Leclerc spools so either of the racks
will do.

Yes, if you beam fast and stop suddenly, both horizontal and
vertical spools will continue unreeling. The trick is to
begin and end slowly.

Cheers,

Laura Fry
http://laurafry.com

Rose,

I always keep the cone of yarn upright and centered under a yarn guide (read: hole). That way, the yarn feeds freely and evenly off
of the tip of the cone. The cone remains stationary so there is no problem with overfeeding.
There is a picture of a creel and yarn guide in Handloom Weaving Technology, along with a shop drawing for making one.

Janet

Have used both. I have one spool rack the best one, which I need to do
some work on, has vertical side bars with holes drilled for metal rods.
On that one the spools cannot jump off. The other one has a 2x2 center
post with dowels about 6 inches long inserted on two sides. One that
one if you start winding fast the spools will sometimes jump off. The
best one came with one of my looms some time after I had bought the
other one. It would not be hard to make, I would clamp the side pieces
together and drill the holes so they'll be lined up. It has 4 vertical
pieces With a top and bottom made of hardwood, then feet cut into a
pretty curved shape. I am thinkin of taking off the feet and fixing a
way to fasten it to the wall. Some put hinges on a doorway and hang
behind the door so when you pull on the warp spools the doorway holds.
However none of my doors are in a good position for that. May just
leave the feet alone as then can move it from one loom to the other.
Alice Murphy

"Weavers get warped,Spinners get a twist, dulcimer players fret but
librarians get booked!"

Hello all,

I am going to have my husband build me a spool rack so I can return to
sectional warping on some of my looms. The question is, which do you
prefer, horizontally positioned spools or vertically positioned spools? I
am wondering if the horizontal spools keep unwinding when you stop turning
the beam. I am also wondering if the vertical spools have too much drag on
them to turn freely enough.

Thanks,
Rose Downs


Princeton, TX

our little family...
http://web2.airmail.net/gdowns/

Hi Ruth,
It has 50 photos of the various parts of the three types of drawlooms. It
was made by Glimakra in Sweden. I have one photo on my webpage of the
combination drawloom.

http://www.initco.net/~elh

I will be ordering some of these CDs, but if you will tell me what you are
interested in, I can address your questions more directly.
Joanne

Ruth Dabritz wrote:

Joanne,
Did I miss something about a drawloom CD? Have you made one and what does
it contain?
-----

--
Joanne Hall
Elkhorn Mountains Weaving Studio
Clancy, MT 59634
http://www.initco.net/~elh

Joanne,
Did I miss something about a drawloom CD? Have you made one and what does
it contain?

Hi Joanne,

Thanks for the info. It seems like I'll stay with what I have.

Nancy

The discussion the past few days about loom computer interfaces encouraged
me to do a little more research today.

I have checked both computer hardware/software resources as well as contacts
within the weaving community.

Loom interfaces vary both in their robustness and their interface - some are
parallel (printer port) and some are serial port devices. Many of these
interfaces will not work or will work only marginally with PCs running the
latest versions of Windows - 2000, XP, NT, etc. Some work at best marginally
with even older PCs and operating systems.

For the past five years the recommended computer interface for relatively
low speed devices such as a loom controller is USB. USB has been on all new
computers for the past four years or so. At the same time parallel (printer)
and serial ports are no longer universally available on new PCs and are
becoming more rare on new machines.

The electronics necessary for a USB interface can be purchased retail for no
more than $2-300. Additional parts needed for a loom interface are
mechanical and electromechanical such as solenoids. Therefore USB interfaces
well within the price range of current loom interfaces are practical.
Currently available are USB to parallel or serial converters suggesting that
with rather simple software modifications, if any at all are needed, loom
controllers could run off the USB interface.

There are some hints that at least one loom manufacturer will have by
Convergence 2002 a USB controller. Don't ask me - I am not at liberty to
pass along the rumor.

The other loom manufacturers may be reluctant to develop a USB based
controller and prospective loom / loom computer interface purchasers should
take this into account when deciding on their equipment. Market share,
profitability, etc. as well has lacking the engineering talent on staff are
likely to be the reasons.

If you want to put some pressure on your favorite loom manufacturer to
provide an interface that will work with current computers, ASK THEM if
their interface is Win2000 and Win XP compatible. ASK THEM when their USB
interface will be available.

And publicize their reponse in places like the WeaveTech list! If they don't
plan to do one rapidly and the word gets around, they could see a major
effect on their loom sales as people make this information part of their
purchase decision process.

Depending on the new design, the application programs (ie. the software you
buy to control the loom) should follow quite rapidly behind the availability
of the interface. The major problem in the past has been the difficulty for
the software programmers to get a new interface to test with their software.

Michael Slade