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Friday, July 01, 2011

Loom Upgrade

This was the state of the jacquard loom before DH began the upgrade process - eight 120-hook modules:



I think DH would agree that the most difficult part of the process was adding all the bits and pieces that make up the support structure, such as the extra arms of the Dial-a-Sett apparatus, from which the modules are suspended:



The black circular objects riding on a square rod are the pulleys that lift the knives (and thereby the selected hooks). We had ordered enough pulleys for 12 modules when the loom was new, because the only way to add more is to take the entire top of the jacquard frame assembly apart, and we didn't think that would be much fun.

Next came the installation of the new modules themselves, two on each side of the existing eight modules:



The pictures make it look easy, but believe me there was a lot of labor, sweat, and cursing to get from eight to twelve modules! There's still a lot of cabling, testing, and tweaking to go. For one thing, the lifting motor doesn't like the extra load, so DH will have to fine-tune the power parameters to make the motor happy.

More work tomorrow. And then it'll be time to beam a warp, and create new files to lift heddles for threading those outer modules, and other fun stuff. Stay tuned.

3 comments:

Alice said...

Watching this with great interest. You are lucky that you have an interested and informed crew as your sidekick. I'm wondering if this update could be accomplished without such high quality help. Carry on.

Laura Fry said...

Wow - what a labour of love! :)
cheers,
Laura

Benita said...

You are so lucky to have such a handy person about the place. That thing looks like it needs an engineer to work on it.