Repairing The Loom

I had high hopes for today. Nothing else booked, the day spread out before me with an invitation to get to the loom twice to weave.

Life had other plans.

Just as I was starting to judge if I had woven to the end of the sweet spot so I could stop for the first session, shaft 1 did something unexpected and very strange. It lifted at the right hand side of the loom, but did not lift on the left.

I tried it twice to make sure it was happening, and try to identify why.

I guess you might think I weave a lot or something, but the ‘eye’ that attaches the Tex-Solv cord to the shaft had worn through and the shaft was no longer attached to the cable that controls the shaft on the left side.

I sighed. Deeply. Tempted to give the loom a good kick, but that would not solve the issue, so I re-set the dobby to the proper pick to begin again and shut everything down.

Then I took a break and thought about the repair.

A cursory glance indicated that the repair should be fairly simple PLUS it was in a position that I could do it myself – no need to call on help.

After I had my snack and a break, I went back down, prepared to spend 20 minutes getting it fixed.

But I took the photo (pre-repair), took a good long hard look, noted that the previous repair didn’t have enough length to just use that. Instead I needed another length of the Tex-Solv cord to bridge the gap.

Since I have repair supplies, it only took a couple minutes to dig the bag of bits and pieces out, dig through to get the cable I had already cut into to do the previous cord repair, select a couple of the plastic ‘plugs’ to use to attach the repair to the existing cord.

Rather than cut the broken cord, I simply slipped the repair cord over the ‘knob’ on the shaft, then matched the repair cord to the existing cord and stuck the pegs into the new and old pieces of cord, above and below the break.

I was actually a bit surprised it went so easily and quickly, and instead of 20 minutes, it took maybe 10, including taking the photo.

Have I done a good enough job? I’ll find out next time I weave. As for today? I’m done.

Instead I’m going to review the slide deck for tomorrow’s seminar, see if I want to pull any samples or books to share. And then take the rest of the day ‘off’.

Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. It’s time to fold and go back another day…