Taking a 'brake'

I’ve put on a new project, and no, it's not another painted silk warp!  It is a project that will use a different reed. We share the 14-15 dent reed so I decided that it would be a good idea to do something completely different.  There is some black 2/22 cottolin that has just been begging to be made into table runners.  I pulled a warp that is 6 yards and 12 inches long, it should be long enough for one 70 inch runner and two 50 inch runners.  

There was a bit of a disaster when we were pulling on the warp, there was a loud wooden thunk and a metallic twang from a spring.  The brake for the cloth beam broke!  The wire had frayed apart where it had been looped over the eye hook at the top of the picture.  It was Friday afternoon when this happen so we sent an email to Louet to see if we can get a replacement.

We were able to finish pulling on the warp without using the brake, but it was slow going.  We’d pull on some of the warp and then lock the cloth beam with the lever and cog system.  After locking the beam we could pull the warp and the paper separator to tighten the warp threads on the cloth beam.

My Louet Spring I loom is one of the originals from the early 1990’s and on the Louet website everything has changed over to the new Spring II loom so we weren’t sure if they could help.  But thankfully Mom also has a Louet Spring I loom that she got in 2008 and it has a slightly different brake set up than mine.  There is a second eye hook in the brake lever and the wire is not looped together.

My clever Dad was able to find 12 gauge braided wire, it is slightly bigger than the original braided wire and a 1 3/4 closed loop screw that perfectly fit the hole in the brake lever.  The braided wire is looped at each end and is held by crimps.  He had to go out and buy a Swaging tool to properly lock (cold weld) the swage sleeve to the braided wire.  There is a lot of tension on the brake so it needs to be done right.  The brake had been fixed by Sunday morning!  The wire will stretch a bit so some fine tuning will be needed by using the upper eye hook.

I’ve already started to thread the loom, ready for the next project!  Oh, and this morning (Monday) we got an email back from Louet, but we were able to fix it ourselves!

Final Garden Photo is some fall colour featuring the lime green leaves of the Golden Smoke Tree (Cotinus Coggyria 'Golden Sprite') which turns a lovely burgundy colour, the Maiden Grass (Miscanthus sinesis' Morning Light') is just starting to bloom and the bright red of the Red Bells Tree (Enkianthus 'campanulatus') makes it a highlight in the autumn garden.