Old Looms Have a Way of Finding Me

Garage full of Weaver's Friend loom parts.

My friend Joan Sheridan, shop owner of Heritage Spinning and Weaving in Lake Orion, Michigan was contacted by someone recently who wanted to find a home for an old loom. It is called a Weaver's Friend and was manufactured by the Reed Loom Manufacturing Company. Since I have gotten several old looms going again and no one else took the bait, she asked if she could bring it up to me.

It now sits on my garage floor in multiple parts.

This part attaches to the crankshaft and the lower back frame support board, and is cracked enough to not be usable.

It is the board in the center of this whole assembly of crankshaft, pitmans, and back support board.

Bob thought the design might not have been strong enough for the force on it, so he beefed it up a bit when he cut a new one. He also made holes for the washers at an angle so they would be perpendicular to the bolts instead of at an angle when everything is tightened down.

The other part of all this assembly is the support board with an arched metal piece that engages with the cog wheel in the center of the crankshaft. The pitmans are the four curvy wooden parts (two are shown in the photo above) and connect with the bottoms of the shafts. It all becomes the automated part of the loom to raise and lower the shafts during weaving.

This is a two shaft loom.  The shafts are very heavy due to the thick hardwood frames and the cast iron pieces. The metal heddles add weight also.

Sectional warp beam.

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(L to R) Part name?, cloth beam, front bottom brace, breast beam, and back beam.

Beater that includes a 12 dent reed.

Top to bottom: handle with pawl, sleying hook, crank handle, rag shuttle.

A few boxes of rag strips were included.

Also included was a blue chained warp and three  large cones of cotton yarn and one mystery fiber.

My hope is to get the restoration done by next week and get a warp on and threaded by the beginning of July.  If that all happens and everything is working well, it will take a trip over to the Walloon Lake Antique Flywheelers grounds to be used as a demonstration loom at the end of July.

That is all contingent on how I am feeling on any given day.  I am halfway through my chemo treatments, with my forth one scheduled next Thursday. I have four or five days of not feeling well following treatment, and am finding I am getting progressively more tired from each one. Daily afternoon naps have become part of the routine. This project has been a nice distraction.

I have started cleaning the loom and removing cast iron parts and painting them. My next post will start showing my progress.

Weaver's Delight Restoration - More Taken Apart

The loom is slowly getting taken apart, mainly to clean rust off most of the cast iron brackets, and to get metal parts out of the way so I can sand and varnish the wood.

Two days ago, I finished painting all the black trim on the wood.  After that dried, I started getting the first coat of varnish on the wood framework.  I will lightly sand that first coat and then add another. 

The wooden bars with the pegs on the sectional beam needed to be cleaned and sanded.  I managed to finish that, and got a coat of varnish on them, also.  I will lightly sand them and get another coat of varnish on them, and then be able to assemble the sectional beam.

The frames to raise and lower the shafts were in pretty good shape, with minimal rust.  I finished removing them from the shafts last night, and used a wire brush on the drill to remove what little rust there was and then painted them tonight.  I finished painting the one side remaining in the photo tonight.

These parts to the shafts aren't going to be fun to clean.  The two that are done were cleaned with navel jelly and a lot of elbow grease.  I'm having to give my right hand and wrist a bit of rest from the sanding.  It was affecting my nerves last night and today.  I need to get my grip back to normal.  Electric sanders and drills speed up the cleaning process, but the vibration isn't too good for my body!  

I took the handle off the beater bar.  It is cast aluminum, and was ugly, so I primed it and painted it hunter green, like the other metal parts.  I think it looks much better.  I'll get a photo of it once I clean up the screws and reattach it.

The breast and back beam rollers are a very rough wood, and no amount of sanding is going to smooth them, so I just put a coat of varnish on them.  Hopefully, light sanding between several coats of varnish will help smooth them out a bit.  I think they rotate, so I don't think smooth is critical.  Obviously the loom came that way, and I'm sure many rugs were made on it through the years.  This is the front of the loom.  Even one coat of varnish has made a difference to the beam.

I still haven't touched the cloth beam, except to remove it from the loom to make it easier to paint the trim below it.  I still need to unwind the apron to see it's condition.  Hopefully it is just dirt that I will have to deal with, rather than replacing it.  Even if it needs replacing, it won't be too big of a deal.  I'm just hoping I don't need to run to the fabric store to purchase canvas and grommets.  It does look pretty dirty!

I like how the wood is starting to look.  This has the black trim finished, and one coat of varnish.  I am done with working on it this week.  We have a happy occasion to celebrate this weekend at the 65th anniversary picnic for Bob's mom and dad.  Next week, we have a sad occasion also, when we go to my sister's funeral.  We just found out about it tonight.  It was unexpected, and I'm sad.