"Day 2 of Assembling My Oxaback Lilla Floor Loom..."

Saturday morning I backtracked a little from where I left the loom on Friday. I took off the couper and pulleys, setting them aside, so that I could tip the loom over, have it rest on the front beam, and stick felt pads under the 6 loom feet. Don took this as the loom was being set upright again.

That wasn't the only backtracking that I did. Both the cloth and the warp beams turned in their "sockets", but not easily. After calling Woolgatherers and getting Hans advice, I then called our neighbor, Rob, and asked to borrow his electric sander. Not only did he bring over the sander (what service, eh?), but also some bees wax to rub onto the beam ends after sanding. I then "carefully" disassembled 1 side of the loom, just enough, so that I was able to slip the beams out one at a time, sand each end, giving them a bit more clearance in the socket and allowing them to turn more smoothly/easily. It worked like a charm. My sincere thanks to both Hans and Rob for their help.

Finally, I was able to begin assembly from where I left off on Friday. ;) The shafts are basically 2 wood strips/slats that are attached together into a "frame like" position using linen warp, after the "bundled" ends of the texsolv heddles are slid onto each piece of wood. Each wood piece has cup hooks screwed into it, the top strip has 2, the bottom strip has one, but on opposite sides. These pieces of wood, texsolv heddles, and linen warp, are suddenly "loom shafts". :)

These shafts are then hung onto the loom using pre-cut texsolv cords (each color coded for their place of function). Below, my 1st shaft hung on the loom. The top ends of the shaft are connected to the coupers and lower lams, via the pulleys, with the bottoms of the shafts connected to the upper lams.

The shafts are adjusted in height so the middle or "eye" of the heddle is in line with the front and back crossbeams.

A view of the tie up from the side of the loom. After hanging the 4 shafts, I decided that I would continue by adding the other 4 as well.

So back to the flame. ;) Each end of the pre-cut texsolv cords had to be singed against unraveling. The cords are cut at the loom manufacturer with a hot knife/laser (?) and are probably fine, but Sara suggested I singe them again.......and I always do as suggested. ;)

A top view of all 8 shafts hung on the loom.

I had one more job to complete before I was done for the day, and that was to add the other 2 treadles to the loom. Since I had changed my mind about the number of shafts on the loom, I needed to have all 8 treadles available for the tie up, too.

A photo of the loom at the point where I left off on Saturday. Sunday's plan was to connect the treadles to the shafts, which would complete the assembly of the loom. After that, all I had to do to be ready for my 1st weaving project, was to measure out my warp and begin dressing the loom.

To be continued.......