I have just received a PDL, 16 harness loom and am trying to get it up and running, but have some questions.   So ya'll know - I'm a spinner and weaver, but nothing quite like this....

The Dobby unit seems to have issues with lines 15 & 16, so I built a sequence that skips Harnesses 14-16 in order to practice my technique.

Now, Harness #10 has blown 3 separate S hooks (connect the cable from the dobby unit to the harness cables).  I've rebuilt all S hooks, have moved very slowing with my sample weave (which is only 20 threads wide) and will now look at the chains attached to H10.

Are there another areas I should look?

Any recommendations from the group for folks new to the PDL?

 

Thank you for your time

Comments

sandra.eberhar…

You don't say how wide your loom is, but a narrow warp on a wide loom can be a problem. What do you mean by "Blown s hooks, and rebuilding s hooks"?  I have an AVL,  but I can't figure out what the problem is.

sandra.eberhar…

You don't say how wide your loom is, but a narrow warp on a wide loom can be a problem. What do you mean by "Blown s hooks, and rebuilding s hooks"?  I have an AVL,  but I can't figure out what the problem is.

hsmyers

"issues with lines 15 & 16" what do you mean by 'lines'? I do remember closing the s-hooks slightly although I don't remember what caused them to become disconnected at this distant (in time) point. I do remember that I had problems with the harnesses stacking on each. I fixed this by creating vertical lanes by seperating each harness from it's neighbor using springs, s-hooks and texsolve cord. I can describe more fully if this is a fit to your problem...

NeneyG

Interesting - it never occured to me that a narrow warp could be a bad thing.  My reed is 48" and the current warp is 2.

The hooks are connecting the cables coming up from the dobby to the left/right cables on each harness.   #10 has separated 3 times.  

I have just now added a bit of chain length to the left spring on #10.  Turns out it didn't have *any* chain on it at all.  Maybe this is it?

J

NeneyG

Lines 15 & 16  - the stops in the dobby box for Harnesses 15 and 16 don't seem to work as smoothly as the rest.   Those harnesses are not raised consistently and while I have fiddled with the Arm, it hasn't made a lot of difference.  So, my temporary solution is to not use the last 4 harnesses, at least until I gain a better understanding of the loom.

I've added a length of chain to the spring, which has worked so far.   I was going to warp up a slightly bigger sample, but maybe I'll try for a foot wide instead?

Bonnie Inouye (not verified)

The length of the chain is important. When you assembled the loom, did you follow the manual carefully? It sounds like this is not a new loom, and the manual that came with is probably not very good but it does help. My AVL looms were built in 1987, 1988 and 2004.

Is your AVL a mechanical dobby loom, or do you have a compu-dobby box? If so, which model of box?

There is a Ravelry group for "All Things AVL" and I like Warped Weavers in Ravelry. WeaveTech is still alive- it is an email list that includes a lot of multishaft weavers. And there are a lot of FaceBook groups for weavers and users of weaving software. You might like the FaceBook group for weavers using more than 8 shafts, if you like FaceBook.

With a narrow warp, actually any warp less wide than the space between the upper hooks on your shafts, you need to have at least one heddle at each end of each shaft. This maintains a consistent space between the top and bottom bars (wooden pieces) that hold the heddles.

For the problem with the last 2 shafts not working... do they never go up?

Bonnie Inouye, author of Exploring Multishaft Design

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