Yesterday I picked up a new (to me at least) countermarch loom. At the moment, it is fitted with 220mm (8 5/8") string heddles. I would like to replace these with texsolv.
Looking at the texsolv website, the 220mm heddles are mostly used for table looms. I have all the bits for 8 shafts, but by the looks of it, the loom was built to accept 12. As I am replacing all heddles anyway, now is probably a good time to change the heddle size.
The distance from the top of the breast beam to the horizontal holding the knee beam is 195mm (about 7.5"). I assume this means that half the outside height of a shaft plus a quarter of the distance between the shaft bars should be slightly less than 195mm for maximum shed. Is this correct? By my calculations 280mm heddles would need about 190mm.
The height of the back beam is adjustable, so if things end up a little bit too tight, I can always raise it to give some extra room I guess. When set in the middle of its range, the back beam is at the same height as the breast beam. I can imagine why one would put the back beam higher, but in what situation would one want to put the back beam lower than the breast beam?
