A few AVL-tips

So many tips-and-tricks are obvious, once you’ve heard them... here are some of mine.

From the ground up; front to back:

Those irritating metal bars that protect the treadle pulleys, where the apron bar (and sometimes the cloth) so often catches:

now covered with a piece of cardboard – no more catching:

(I used a piece of paper for years, but when it tore it got replaced with cardboard)

The beater top that goes with the double fly-box used to be attached to the boxes. As I quite often change between single and double box, I had problems every time I wanted to change: how to handle a 60” beater top with a heavy lump at each end?
The answer (unfortunately out of focus):

My shafts are numbered. (Thank you, Laura – when you told me, I was still so much in countermarch mode. On the CM I constantly take the shafts off and on – no way I would number them) Numbering them "the American way" also helps if I print out a threading using numbers.

Next, I have a permanently installed holder for the brake weight:

Then, following the ground-up-rule of above, there is the “grenade pin” on the cloth storage roller – it has got a hole for storage when not in use. (OK, it is nearly always in use, but once it fell into a box full of yarn – that never happens anymore.)

(The number comes from the time I was disassembling the loom to take it to a show. Nearly all older Swedish looms are permanently marked some way or another.)

At the back, first comes the numbered sectional. It is numbered two ways: from the middle outwards and from left to right.

Lastly, I have taken the top off of the tension box "raddle". (Laura has a much more sophisticated system here – I just use painter’s tape if needed.)

The pivoting reed still has it’s top – I would like to take it off, but the tines get unstable and I don’t think it would survive for long without the stabilisation.

Still no luck on the picker return front. The buttonhole elastic now has survived about 10000 picks each without sagging, and I have a whole roll of it...

What time can do

Other than gallivanting around, I have done some weaving, too!

I planned this double-layer scarf, and decided it would do well on the AVL. As it is so much more work to weave with the double-box, I usually change to the single-box when I don't need two shuttles.
The double-box attachment had been sitting in a dark corner for several months, but now I took it out and mounted it. And found... the rubber picker-returns were completely unusable, both of them. Only time had eaten them - they were relatively new when I last used them. And I had only one spare spring.
Obviously, it was time to do some radical thinking (and also find a fast fix). While still thinking about possible "final solutions", here is my fast fix:

Yes, buttonhole elastic and a pin.
It works quite well, especially when I had devised a "deflector shield" to ensure that the shuttle could not be trapped under the picker.

But I am still pondering a final solution... or at least a solution with springs that will only deteriorate with actual usage. I'll keep you posted.

One neat trick – and a fly-shuttle mechanism

Starting with the "neat trick": over on Weavolution, Sally posted a trick to keep some order when weaving with several shuttles. Here it is – scroll down to the last picture.
As my warps often are wide enough to take several "idle" shuttles (and as I seldom bother about catching idle wefts... lazy, what more can I say?) , I seldom see idle shuttles as a problem.
But now – now I have the tail end of the honeycomb samples still on the loom (did I say lazy?) – and: the main reason for it still being there is that it is too narrow to handle the idle shuttles... So I adapted Sally’s idea (why didn’t I think of that, myself???) – here it is, not elegant, but functional:

(No, I don't use the fly-shuttle(s) for narrow warps; it doesn't work very well and is far more trouble than it is worth.)

(Then, on WeaveTech, we got this link to a short video, showing a very elegant and simple solution. Enjoy!)

There is also a discussion going on Weavolution on flying shuttles and mechanisms for "flying" them. I tried to photograph mine, but there isn’t enough space behind the loom to get it all in one picture. (And, yes, there is way too much in the background to make a "good picture" - .)
Mine is a side-pull, which means you flick the handle to the right to propel the shuttle to the right, and vice versa. (With the center-pull mechanism, pictured on the Weavo thread above, you flick the handle downwards to propel both pickers at the same time.)
So: here is the left-hand side of the loom:

The right side (couldn’t get high enough contrast, so the cords are sort-of-highlighted)

A detail from the right-hand side:

My loom* has an overhead beater – the top arrow points at the beater sword(?) – the bottom arrow points to the picker. There is no stop at the outside end of the box – the cord is short enough to stop the picker from falling out.

When I mount the double-box next time, I will take pictures of that, too.

* My loom is an AVL PDL - an older cousin to this one.