I'd ordered my new 24", 8 shaft, Ashford Table loom, with Stand, from Susan's Fiber Shop, in Columbus, WI, and it arrived late Thursday afternoon!!! I immediately began my adventure into assembling them by opening and unpacking the stand first. Don, of course, caught this happy moment. It was very well packed and everything that was supposed to be in the box, WAS in the box. ;)
The direction booklet was VERY well illustrated. The stand includes a 4 treadle kit, but I chose not to use those parts, not wanting to have it work with anything but the top levers. The treadles may work for a shorter person, but for someone my height, they would not be conducive to a comfortable weaving experience.
Here is the box unpacked with parts laid out for assembly.
In very little time, due to excellently illustrated directions, the stand was assembled. I later reversed the 2 side shelves so that the closed end was in the back. It was easily done after assembly by removing 2 screws, reversing the shelf, then replacing the screws once again. It was done in a matter of minutes.
Then began the unpacking of the loom itself.
Once again, everything needed was neatly packed and in the box. Here are all of the parts prior to assembly.
The main frame is easily assembled (great illustrations!). Hints, such as using candle wax on each screw prior to insertion, made the job easier, too.
The castle pieces assembled.....
Frame and castle assembled........
The "in-between step" not photographed, was the assembly of the 8 shafts. It, too, was an easy job. 16 screws were inserted into the 16 tops of the wooden end pieces, Texsolv heddles were slid onto top and bottom shaft rods, which were then inserted into the wooden end pieces, screw side up. ;) The small screws are what were soon to attach the Texsolv cord around, after being threaded through the upper castle, and attached to the front levers by threading the cord through the castle front. After the Texsolv cords were all attached, then it was a simple process of adjusting the height of each shaft, using the holes in the Texsolv cordage.
Lastly, the hanging beater was attached and the loom was completely assembled. Admittedly, I did make a few changes on the front and back cloth rods/beams. I didn't want to use the string provided, so instead, I used some extra Texsolv cord that I had previously bought, to attach the cloth rods to the cloth beams. I made further alterations with those, after weaving a scarf, which I think will make it work better for me. I'll show what I did in tomorrows post.
I also wanted to show a photo of just how nicely the loom and stand fold up for storage. The loom is supposed to fold this nicely with a weaving project on it, too. Due to the size and amount of various fiber equipment in my fiber room, I will definitely have an opinion on that soon. ;)
Tomorrow: My first sock yarn scarf.