Thought I’d talk a bit about using the temple.
Mentioned in my previous post that it is essential to use the temple on this warp. The reason is that the take up in the loom is such – especially on wider warps – that a soft spot will develop a few inches in from the selvedge. This soft spot will develop soggy ends that wind up in floats/skips. Not so noticable in something other than plain weave, but very obvious when weaving plain weave, which I am doing here. Also more noticable in yarns with poor recovery from stretch.
And so – the temple is in use.
It can also be important to use a temple if using a very delicate yarn. Any take up at all will cause selvedge ends to break if a temple isn’t used.
And lastly, if you want a dense fabric, a temple is also necessary in order to keep the ends spaced far enough to beat the weft picks in to the higher density.
The temple should be sized so that the teeth hold the outside 3-4 ends to their path through the reed. You don’t want to size the temple wider than the width in the reed.
I’ve set the temple so that it hinges with the release bracket at my left hand. I slide the bracket off so that the temple will fold, pick up the right hand side and dig it into the selvedge, then set the left hand side, sliding the bracket back.
While it only takes a moment, it does take that moment. And that’s why I’m going to be looking very seriously at the Fireside roller temples and hoping that Doug will be able to fit them to the loom.