Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / All blog posts / Please welcome Emmy!
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January 2, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Please welcome Emmy!

Yesterday was New Year’s, and I celebrated with a loom-raising party! Four friends came over and helped put Emmy (my new 40-shaft loom) together.

We started with a pile of bits in the garage:

pile of loom parts
pile of loom parts!

Then we moved them out to the driveway:

slightly more organized pile of loom parts!
slightly more organized pile of loom parts!

What pieces to start with? My friends Lieven and Dave went through the manual, but it started with the assumption that the side frames were already built. Undeterred, they sorted through the bits and pieces and eventually figured out how to reassemble the side frames:

Assembling the side frames of the loom
Assembling the side frames of the loom

Around then, Alfred and Nyondo arrived. And not a moment too soon, as putting together the full frame was a lot simpler with five people:

putting together the frame of the loom
putting together the frame of the loom

Then we put in one of the warp separator beams, and the lamms:

loom, with a few horizontal cross-pieces
loom, with a few horizontal cross-pieces

The Compudobby unit was tricky – heavy, delicate, and awkward. (Not to mention expensive!) Here we are putting it in…there are three people in the photo, but it eventually took four of us to get it properly seated and attached:

Installing the compudobby
Installing the compudobby

But we did get it in:

Installed CompuDobby
Installed CompuDobby!

The next task was to hang the shafts. Nyondo untangled them one by one, and Alfred and Dave hung them one by one. I ferried the shafts from one place to another.

Here we are at the beginning:

hanging the shafts inside the frame
hanging the shafts inside the frame

…and at the end, with all forty shafts hung neatly inside the frame:

All forty shafts hung in the frame!
All forty shafts hung!

Nyondo volunteered for the tedious work of hooking the shafts to the lamms underneath:

Nyondo hooking up lamms
Nyondo hooking up lamms

Dave and Alfred then went through and carefully aligned all the dobby cables and made sure they were running over the right pulleys – exacting and tedious work.

We had all been working for nearly six hours at this point, and were getting more than a little punchy. So we finished up work for the day by putting in the warp beams:

nearly-assembled loom!
nearly-assembled loom!

And I couldn’t resist a victory photo:

Tien and Emmy
Tien and Emmy

There was still some work left to do, though, like installing the beater, the bench, and the warp tensioning devices. I got up early this morning to finish the job. Voila Emmy!

Emmy, completely assembled
Emmy, completely assembled
Side view of the 40-shaft loom, fully assembled
Side view of Emmy the 40-shaft loom

I did make one mistake in assembly, though: the warp tensioning systems got installed on the wrong side. I’ll fix that tomorrow morning – I’m way too exhausted tonight!

Many, many thanks to my friends Lieven, Dave, Alfred, and Nyondo – without them, Emmy would still be a pile of parts.

Please welcome Emmy!

 

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Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving

Previous post: A brief diversion into quilt design
Next post: Finalized the quilt design

Comments

  1. Mary Coburn says

    January 2, 2014 at 7:16 pm

    Congratulations on the new loom!!!! I am putting my AVL 16 together with just one helper. It will take a little longer… lol

  2. majorasue says

    January 2, 2014 at 9:01 pm

    It is a good thing to have willing and capable friends! Congrats on Emmy being together and ready to work.

  3. Sharon says

    January 2, 2014 at 11:23 pm

    That is a serious loom! Not just more shafts but wider too, isn’t it?

    • Tien Chiu says

      January 3, 2014 at 5:24 am

      Yes! Emmy weaves 48″ wide – quite a change after weaving on 24″ looms my entire weaving life.

  4. dsare says

    January 3, 2014 at 8:44 am

    Amazing friends and an amazing loom! And I know that you will make very good use of it.

  5. Deanna Johnson says

    January 3, 2014 at 8:56 am

    Bravo!!! What better way to start a new year?!

  6. dave w says

    January 3, 2014 at 9:30 am

    Hi, Tien – I mailed the Wayward Wrenches back to you this morning… I think we were all a bit punchy at the end; I simply lost track that they were still in my pockets… oops!

    So you were able to install the beater OK without the rest of us? I was wondering about that; it seemed to be the Last Big Piece remaining; sounds like that wasn’t a problem, I guess…

    • Tien Chiu says

      January 3, 2014 at 9:34 am

      Aha! I wondered where the wrenches had gotten to. Yes, the beater was fine – the tricky part was actually removing and putting the warp beams back in, in order to install the tensioning system. But I managed it!

  7. terri says

    January 3, 2014 at 4:07 pm

    Welcome, Emmy! (And yay for such great friends!)

  8. Erik says

    January 3, 2014 at 6:39 pm

    Congratulations on your new loom! I have shaft envy.

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