Thursday, January 29, 2009

Got Texsolv?

If you own a loom manufactured in the last 10 years or so, there's a good chance that you do.

Texsolv is a crocheted polyester cord, specially manufactured to resist stretching. The word "solv" in Swedish means "heddle".

On my Baby Wolf, the apron cords and brake cord are Texsolv.


On my rigid heddle loom, the apron cords are Texsolv also.


My new-to-me Toika Liisa has Texsolv used to connect the jacks and shafts, as well as Texsolv heddles.


Plus, even more Texsolv to connect the lamms and treadles in this bundle.


The previous owner converted the original string tie-up to Texsolv in the early 1990's. Some of the Texsolv has worn badly, and I want to change the tie-up system so that I don't have to spend quite as much time under the loom.


My loom came with lots of these anchor pins.


Thanks to the wonder of mail order, a package arrived from Vavstuga within days of ordering.

I ordered 22 yards of Texsolv and some straight pegs. This way I can replace any cord that's worn and experiment with straight pegs.

I've read different estimates about how much Texsolv it takes to set up a loom. I did some calculations of my own, and realized the reason the estimates sometimes differ widely is because looms with more shafts, require more Texsolv. My loom has 12 shafts....although I'm going to start with just 2, or maybe 4.


I'm just waiting for one more metal piece before I can start putting the moving parts of the loom together.

3 comments:

Lynnette said...

I too converted a loom over to texsolv. I had a huge Norwegian 12 shaft countermarche which I bought at a garage sale as a pile of lumber. Trundeled it home, hoping I had all the parts and found it had the original hand tied linen heddles and tie up cords, set up only for counterbalance weaving. Changing it all to Texsolve was a bit fiddly, but worth it all in the end. I know you will love your loom when it's all tied up and ready for your maiden voyage.

Susan said...

I agree with Lynnette... the trouble of refitting and costs are well worth the ease of use later on!
Working so closely with your new loom means you will know it inside and out and that's a good thing.

This will help later on when you need to make adjustments and tweak things during weaving

Susan

Life Looms Large said...

It's so good to hear from some one else who converted a loom over to Texsolv and lived to tell about it!

I am so unmechanically minded - and it shocks me that I'm so interested in how this loom works. It's even making look at my Baby Wolf loom through new eyes.

Fingers crossed that the work I'll do on it today goes well!