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Counter Marche Loom Info

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> I have been considering a counter-marche loom, but
> have been told that the tie up is really ugly.

  Heh ! This is one of those urban myths. A CM has more tieups and the shafts have to be tied so the rear shafts move more than the front shafts, if the loom has rear hinged treadles. The best way to tie up a CM with rear hinged treadles is to make the tieup cords for each treadle, color code them and then  keep them until needed. The treadle cord for shaft 1 is a little longer than the cord for shaft 2, and so on. An 8 shaft CM with 10 treadles will have 80 tie up cords for instance.
  All treadles should be tied up and every treadle is tied to every shaft, unless a skeleton tie up is used throughout. A CM loom is adjustable at several points usually and this feature drives some people up the wall. I like to be able to adjust a loom to suit me.

Bill Koepp
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CM Shed....

> I am getting a very small shed in front of the beater.  The shed
> back at the heddles is 3", but I think the lower shed is restricted...

  Set the reed so the warp comes through the center of the dents. The warp should just touch the bottom of the dents when the treadles are pressed down fully. Whether the reed is in a deep slot or not isn't important unless you have a shuttle race on the beater. If there's a race then the bottom of the dents of the reed should be level with the surface of the race or close to it. The beater should also have adjustments to raise or lower it. If that fails to improve the shed size, check the lamms to see if they operate correctly; the lamms should have the same clearances in the up position as in the down position. By clearances I mean the little space between the end of the lamms and the shafts and the end of the lamms and the treadles, both should be the same when any shed is opened. Some looms need to have the lamms set at an uphill angle when at rest, some like to have the lamms level at rest.
  Don't hang the treadles too high, they should almost touch the floor when pressed fully, if not rehang and/or add extensions to the treadles so your leg can fully press them down. All looms and all human legs are not the same !

Bill Koepp

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> I'm trying to improve the shed on my CM Glimakra.

   Check that the warp is in the middle of the reed dents at the rest position, press a treadle until the shed just touches the bottom of the reed dents, hold that pose and look under at the lamms. The lamms should be touching or almost touching the treadles and the shafts; the lower lamms either almost touch the treadles or they almost touch the upper lamms. The upper lamms almost touch the lower lamms or they almost touch the shafts. The treadle will not be touching the carpet. If there's a one or two inch space between any of the lamm points, you've lost some shed movement there, so retie the cords a bit to eliminate that space then do the test again. Press every treadle to check every shed.
   There's not much room under the shafts of a CM loom considering all that goes on under there, so all of the space should be utilized. CM looms with only one set of lamms can do the same; watch the lamm ends to see if there's wasted space when the shed is just touching the bottom of the reed dents, check that the treadle isn't touching the carpet.
   One final adjustment ( for this problem ) is to check that the coupers are properly set at the rest position. Some CM require that the horizontal coupers be set at an upward angle at rest. I like the vertical coupers myself.

-  Bill Koepp

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http://www.oocities.org/rugtalk
(Heh ! This is one of those urban myths.)