No Shed – New Shed
The two looms I own are the Schacht Baby Wolf and Schacht Mighty Wolf. The towels I’m currently weaving at a pace as slow as a snail are on the Baby Wolf which is a 24″ wide, 8 shaft loom. I only have 4 of the shafts threaded for this twill. I’m on the 5th towel of 10 (I think). I decided to try a twill pattern which requires 8 treadles to be used. For at least 2 of the treadles 3 shafts are raised at the same time.
When I took this loom out to thread it I noticed that my rubber bands at the back were all dry rotted so I removed them and just started weaving away happily with no issues, but then when I did the tie up for this current pattern I remembered why those rubber bands are helpful.
See all that space under the lower threads? Also, see how there’s no way a shuttle is getting through there? I wove a couple of picks, pushing down the offending shaft each time. Then i remembered the rubber bands.
And I decided to take my camera along so I could show what those holes in the back of the loom are for in case you were wondering.
Here’s my rubber band collection. You can use almost any rubber band as long as it will fit through the hole and they are all the same size.
One down….
There they all are threaded through the holes that are there for just this purpose.
Then slide the thin dowel through the top loop of the rubber bands which will hold them in place.
Now add a treadle tie cord to each rubber band.
And slide a tie up into each treadle.
So, what this does is when a treadle is pushed down on purpose, its neighbors don’t follow along because they are held in place by the rubber bands. But the bands stretch so when you actually want to push that treadle you can.
So now you know, if you have a loom like this and it came with all of those rubber bands, what to do with them!
Ok. I’m back to weaving!
6 thoughts on “No Shed – New Shed”
MIND BLOWN. I have issues with my shed sometimes on my studio loom because neighboring shafts lift together. I’ll have to take a look at it and see if I can use this trick!
My Baby Wolf did not come with a piece of wood with holes like that. Is that something you added after-market?
It’s standard equipment. He’s the link to the manual. https://schachtspindle.com/support-item/baby-wolf-assembly/
Maybe you’d is older than mine…. Although I think mine is at least 10 years old….
Mine doesn’t have the holes either (1990 model). But, I looped rubber bands around the piece of wood behind the jacks, then looped the treadling ties through and into the the treadles. It has helped a lot! You might have to link 2 rubber bands together for the length needed Otherwise the tension is too tight and the rubber bands will break, or it’s too hard to completely depress the treadles. You can “MacGyver” it!!
Thank you for this great tip! I didn’t know about the treadle aids.
I’ve inherited a Baby Wolf and just tied on a complicated 8 shaft twill pattern and was so disappointed with the shed. Thank you for this, now I’m off to find rubber bands and fingers crossed I’ll be weaving happily very soon.