Here find advice and tips on maintaining your weaving or spinning equipment, and doing some basic repairs.
Note: if the loom or spinning wheel is a valuable antique, you really should consult a professional conservator before doing any refinishing or repairs whatsoever. If conservators are not listed in your phone directory, you should be able to reach one by getting a referral from a professional antique dealer or your nearest museum.
Wooden parts if already in good condition can easily be kept that way, using clear paste wax that is then buffed with a soft cloth. Avoid canned sprays or any products containing silicones. Silicones will contaminate the wood and make any future refinishing much more difficult.
Why the emphasis on wax? It will do no harm and is easily removeable if ever a full refinishing is necessary. Contrary to popular advertising or folklore, wax is not waterproof but you are not supposed to set your snacks on the loom or wheel. Wax will protect very well against minor scrapes from (dry) tools or objects sitting on it, and allows yarns or cloth to slip smoothly over it without snagging or contamination. It will also provide a warm lustrous appearance that gets better year after year.
If there are minor scratches or blemishes, first determine the type of finish. If no information is available from the manufacturer, you will have to test a spot. Pick a small test area out of sight (a couple of square inches will suffice).
Steel wool is NOT an acceptable substitute for fine sandpaper. Microscopic steel particles will embed themselves in the pores or fine crevices in the wood and can react chemically with wood tannins or finishes causing permanent stains.
If some finish comes off on a clean white cloth dampened with 90% or greater strength alcohol (from the pharmacy), it is likely shellac-based. Surface scratches can be lightly sanded if necessary by going with the wood grain direction with a fine or very fine grit (200 or 400) sandpaper used dry. Touch up with shellac applied with a cloth. Leave to dry overnight. Repeat if necessary. Then apply a clear paste wax; then hand buff with a soft cloth.
If some finish comes off with turpentine or odourless paint thinner, it is likely an oil finish or oil varnish. Surface scratches can be sanded as above. Then apply a liquid tung oil finish sparingly. Rub off the excess oil after a few minutes and let set overnight. Repeat if necessary. (You are through with the oiling if most of it remains on the surface after a few minutes and you end up wiping off most of what you put on.) Next day wax and then hand buff.
Fire Danger Warning: these oil finishes can cause fires in the applicators used. There is no danger with the oil oxidizing/hardening on the wood. The problem lies with the applicator oil-soaked rags or paper towels which can potentially spontaneously combust if a bundle is just thrown into a waste container; considerable heat will build up in the garbage pile as they oxidize, and finally they burst into flame. Immediately after use, drown the applicators in a bucket of water (preferably outdoors safely away from children) until disposal. Alternatively they can be taken outside and spread out flat on a non flammable surface or hung on a line to dry and they should cure without heat buildup.
If the finish is hard and resists alcohol and turpentine, then you likely have a modern polyurethane which is more like a plastic. Sand as above and apply a thinned polyurethane with a rag or sponge (brushes tend to create tiny bubbles that burst while hardening, thus leaving a rough surface).
The Problem. The majority of woods used for looms and wheels are very light in colour in their unfinished or sanded state. Lighter hardwoods were used such as maple and birch. Articles made from these lighter woods tend to be finished in a warmer stain, typically a mellow golden to tan colour. The older articles actually got this colour gradually as their once clear finish yellowed over time. The problem comes when you try to match a damaged or sanded area to the rest of the original. Modern improved clear finishes may state that they do not yellow, which means the refinished light area would stick out forever.
The solution. All of the finishes above (shellac, oil, varnish or polyurethane) are available in different colour shades. Most product lines will have something like a "golden oak" which will give a very close match to that older yellowed finish. Experiment on a small hidden area or on a separate piece of similar wood. Chances are one shade like "golden oak" will achieve a match; if one coat is too light, additional coats may be perfect. If you cannot get a match with one colour, you may have to add a bit of another shade such as pecan.
Take time to think about your experimental results, consider what is needed to achieve the right colour shade and you will get there. When you have achieved a match in the refinished area, consider giving a final thinned coat to the entire article, which should make the repair blend in satisfactorily.
If the article is from a darker wood such as oak or walnut, it will be easier to achieve a matching shade for the refinished areas; a clear finish or at most a bit of shading should do it.
If the damage on your loom or wheel is sufficient to cause refinishing of a major part, or complete refinishing, you may wish to consult a hardware or paint dealer that actually knows his/her products. They will have samples of the finish on actual woods; just make sure the wood is similar to yours. A coloured finish will look much different on light woods like maple or pine than it will look on an oak sample.
Likely someone will eventually try to sell you an environmentally friendly water-based polyurethane or varnish. They are not completely friendly as they have to contain VOCs (volatile organic compounds) or the varnish solid components would not dissolve in the plain water. Now you know why water-based latex paint still stinks; even the odourless varieties have masked the VOCs, not eliminated them. The simple truth (as verified from testing by professional woodworkers and their magazines) is that solvent-based finishes are much tougher than their snooty, and often premium priced, water-based cousins.
And if there are original labels or owner's markings that you would like to retain, make sure you carefully mask them off before any refinishing. First make sure they are firmly attached to the surface. (If not, reglue them down before proceeding.) Cover them carefully with a blue or green paper masking tape whose manufacturer states it can remain on for a few days without losing adhesive or contaminating the surface. It is always easier to remove the masking tape while the surrounding finish is still soft. Such is not normally a problem with oil finishes, but varnish or polyurethane finishes can glue the masking tape to the object once they harden. The safest way to avoid such a situation is to remove the masking tape after each finish coat before it hardens; then remask before any subsequent coat. Slow but sure.
If there are minor problems, you do not have to be a professional woodworker to achieve effective, responsible results. But if you are uncomfortable with the severity of the problem, ask the assistance or advice of a woodworker or competent woodworking store employee. If there are problems with metal fasteners or parts, see further on this page.
Just remember a caution about true antiques -- any wooden joint originally assembled with hide glue (may look like a brown crystalline substance where intact, or brown powder as it deteriorates) should be repaired with hide glue leaving the door open for repair again a hundred years from now. A hide glue joint can be dissassembled with a careful injection of hot water, while a modern glue or epoxy is irreversible and the space-age glued joint may be badly damaged during any future restoration.
If the item was originally assembled with modern woodworking glues, then they are acceptable for repairs.
For example, a slightly loose joint in a spinning wheel's leg can often be firmed up without dissassembly by injecting a modern specialized joint-tightening glue, which resembles a thinned white woodworker's glue.
A very loose leg joint should be carefully taken apart and the old glue scraped off. Test fit the joint dry before adding glue. If very wobbly, a small amount of packing may be inserted, using perhaps wooden toothpicks in the hole (mortise) or some string or fine thread wrapped around the end of the leg (tenon). Once the joint will not rock, glue can be applied and the joint clamped and left overnight to dry.
Similar steps and a little improvisation may be necessary for other types of joints.
A crack or split in a wood part can often be fixed by wicking a thin instant cyanoacrylate glue into the crack and then clamping the crack closed. Small tubes of instant glues are available in hardware stores, but larger one or two ounce bottles are much more economical for the scale of woodworking here. Such bottles are sold in hobby outlets for model airplane construction.
Special Safety Note for Instant Glues: Use this "instant" glue outside or in a truly well ventilated area as the fumes from more than a couple of drops can be very irritating. Wear safety goggles and do not rub your eyes or face as you will always accidentally get some glue on your hands. If you do manage to stick your fingers together, the situation is not the horror show depicted in fiction as natural skin oil prevents a strong bond. Usually soaking in warm soapy water will unstick you and you can peel off the rest of the glue after it hardens. Nail polish remover (acetone) will definitely unstick the glue, as will a special debonder substance sold in hobby stores. Just remember that anything that dissolves instant glue is probably a pretty nasty substance too, so wash thoroughly with soap and warm water until you cannot smell the solvent and keep those contaminated fingers away from your eyes. If you do get this glue into your eyes, you need immediate emergency medical attention.
And it is not at all "instant" if more than a few drops are applied; parts needing lots of glue into a crack should be left clamped overnight. There are accelerator products to speed this glue's drying, but the accelerator will not penetrate well into a deep crack. Accelerator may cause a weaker bond, and can leave an ugly white residue.
Here is a neat trick if the crack goes all the way through a board. On the lower or back side, cover all the crack with masking tape except say an inch at one end. Apply a vacuum cleaner nozzle to the last inch here while introducing thin instant glue on the other side of the board, at the opposite end of the crack. Stop as soon as you see glue arrive at the vacuum point. Using gravity combined with the vacuum will make the glue quickly penetrate throughout the entire crack. The masking tape serves the dual purpose of keeping this very aggressively spreading glue from coming out onto the lower surface and ruining the existing finish. Then clamp as usual.
Severe damage to a wooden part may require replacement. That may be as simple as ordering a part from the manufacturer, or making a duplicate using the old part as a model. If you are not a woodworker, and do not have a friend who is, a duplicate part can be contracted to a woodworking or custom furniture business.
Just make sure you go over every joint and part. If this is a used item, or even a new item assembled by someone else, check that every part has been assembled correctly. In such cases, I have often found parts put together backwards. A copy of the manufacturer's handbook will be most helpful, but common sense will often reveal how it should be assembled.
For example, wing nuts (butterfly nuts) and bolts often hold the reed to the beater bar. The wing nut should be on the side that will not strike other parts of the loom frame during use. The top wing nut might need to be on the opposite side from the lower one to avoid damaging the fixed parts of the loom.
Rubber bumpers may be missing or damaged. They can often be replaced by rubber pencil erasers; the large white or pink ones may be cut to fit if necessary, and attached by double-sided carpet tape.
The commonest problem is looseness of parts held by screws or nuts and bolts. Vibrations from use will always tend to loosen these parts over time, so they need periodic tightening. While you could, and probably should, do this on a regular maintenance shedule, human nature makes us less-organized types do this on an as-needed basis. (You will know when the time is right; the hard part is to do it then, before it gets worse and the whole thing rocks drunkenly and maybe damages something.) Simple tightening will make the loom or wheel rigid enough to be a pleasure to use again.
Use the correct size and type of screwdriver, as the wrong size will likely slip and damage the metal or nearby wood parts or even get bloodstains on the darling.
A screw that has stripped the hole in a wood part may be be tightened after first putting a piece or two of wooden toothpick into the hole, so the screw thread will have something to bite.
A screw that has broken off in the wood is a bit more of a challenge, especially if the configuration of the hardware demands that a screw is needed in this same exact space. Options:
If enough of the screw shank extends above the surface, try to get a bite on the end of the shank with a pair of locking pliers (Vice Grips for example) and turn out. Ordinary pliers are much less likely to work, as the locking type has a mechanical advantage and gets a much harder bite.
Murphy's Law says of course that pliers won't work because the screw is below the wood surface. So you could try drilling a hole in the end of the screw shank with a metalworking drill bit that is smaller in diameter, then hammering a screw extractor (available in hardware stores) into the metal hole, and turning the extractor out with the attached screw. In theory. At very least, you have added to your useless gadget collection.
Chances are you need Plan C. Use a metalworking drill bit (standard twist drill) which is slightly larger than the screw shank to exterminate it off the planet, meanwhile making a mess of the wood hole. Then use a woodworking bit to drill a larger hole roughly centered around where the screw was. Ideally this hole will be made the same diameter as a standard size wood dowel from your hardware store. Glue a piece of dowel into the hole and let dry. Cut off flush with the wood surface and sand/refinish as appropriate. Then predrill a hole a bit smaller than the shank of the replacement screw in the exact spot needed (which may not be the centre of the dowel). Done.
For nuts and bolts, get correct-size fixed or adjustable wrenches. Never (never!) use pliers as you will absolutely chew up the metal. Yes the pliers are right there and the wrenches are in the basement; please go and get the wrenches.
A regular bolt has a hexagonal head on one end (sometimes it's square), and during tightening needs to be held by a wrench at the head end while the nut is tightened on the other (threaded) end with a second wrench.
How tight to tighten a nut and bolt? A wrench with a 4-inch long handle will apply all the force needed here. First tighten most of the way with fingers only. Then use the wrench until it just starts to get snug; then use the firm force of exactly two fingers on the wrench handle for the final tightening. (Using your whole hand to do the final tightening with the wrench would apply so much force that you will likely overstress the joint, strip a thread, or crush a wooden part.) If the wrench you are using to do the tightening has a handle longer than 4 inches, just put those two fingers about 4 inches from the jaws for the final tightening.
All bolts will have a metal washer under the nut to prevent the latter from crushing the wood. If missing, washers are as close as your hardware store and should be used wherever practicable. (The only likely case where it may not be practicable is if the washer raises the nut enough to interfere with another moving part.) A better outfitted loom will also have a washer between the head of a hex (or square) headed bolt and the wood. Add one if not there already and you have the space.
The fender washer is a large flat variety that can often be substituted in places you normally find smaller flat washers. The hole in the fender washer center for the bolt is the same size, but the outside diameter is much larger (say quarter size vice dime size). The larger flat area helps stop the fender washer from digging into the wood. Hardware stores carry fender washers in a range of sizes that will fit on any bolt you will find on your loom. (Keep a few spares in different sizes for some future needs around the house -- very handy invention.)
Besides regular bolts as described above, looms often use carriage bolts which have a domed head at one end and a square portion under the dome that bites into the wood; consequently this bolt type is self-holding at this head end. Obviously you only need to tighten the nut on the other (threaded) end with a single wrench. Equally obviously, you do not use a flat washer under the domed end.
If the carriage bolt's square portion ever chews up the wood so the domed end spins when you try to tighten the nut, you have some fairly simple solutions:
Prevention really is worth its weight in gold. Looms and spinning wheels should be kept in your house in an area of people-comfortable temperatures and humidity. Never store in a porch or your basement or garage. (And yes, keep all your wool, yarns, fabrics, tools, etc. in heated, dry areas.)
For exposed nuts and bolts and screwheads and metal brackets or fixtures, first put a drop of sewing machine oil (or 3 in 1 brand oil) on a cotton swab and apply carefully to the metal surface only. Try to avoid contaminating the wood, and quickly wipe off any surplus. (These are lubricating oils which do not dry like the special wood finishing oils; excessive lubricating oil must be removed or it can eventually discolour or soften wood parts.)
Simple hardware such as standard nuts, bolts and washers are inexpensive and can easily be replaced if rusted or damaged or missing. Just take a sample to your local hardware store for a perfect match. (Chances are good that you can find only slightly more expensive stainless steel versions. If not too expensive, you might consider replacing all such rust-prone parts.)
A rusted part should be removed from the loom or wheel before treatment. The first, most important, aim must be to remove rust because rust breeds more rust. Use the least aggressive method that will achieve your aim.
Light rust may be removed with oils specifically designed to penetrate rust, scrubbing with an ink eraser or kitchen abrasive plastic pad or steel wool or fine sandpaper or soft wire brush or the latest handy gadget from your auto parts store.
More severe rust may have to face a penetrating oil and some combination of sanding and/or aggressive wire brushing. Always wear safety goggles and a dust mask. Always follow these rougher techniques with finer abrasives to remove the prior step's big scratches that would encourage future rusting.
More severe rust may need media or sand blasting, which can be contracted at vehicle repair shops or some corner garages.
A chemical rust remover such as naval jelly will remove fairly heavy rust but leaves a protective mottled grey finish that is not attractive. Neither will it leave the surface smooth, for the rust pits remain. If the part is in plain view and appearance is important, it will still require polishing and/or refinishing. (Safety note: rust removing chemicals are very nasty so be sure to read, understand, and follow the manufacturer's safety directions.)
Cosmetic appearance is actually a useful aim and may mean further polishing or refinishing or painting or electroplating of the part; it is useful by reducing the chances of further rusting.
The simplest new finish is a rust prevention paint to match the other metal parts. All rust paints are not created equal. Even in the same brand, the aluminium pigmented paint is usually the most rust resistant. If you need a colour other than aluminium, the latter is still likely the most durable and practical first coat. (Remember to clean the metal part of any oils or lubricants before painting. Paint and automotive stores can provide cleaning product advice here.)
Loom reeds are a special case. If they ever seriously rust, there is no way to save them. Rusting will leave pits in the wires that will always catch the threads. Fortunately for old orphaned looms, there are custom or generic reeds available that can be made or adapted to fit yours. Just check the ads in weaving magazines.
If you never want to worry about rusted reeds again, there are replacement stainless steel reeds. While more expensive initially, they will save you money over the long run. Consider -- if the original manufacturer's reed has rusted, why would you want to spend good money on an identical one?
Big tool tip. Acquire a small tool kit dedicated to your craft projects with the correct size screwdrivers, wrenches, etc. that you use all the time. Keep the kit with your craft supplies. A splash of bright (pink?) paint on the tool handles will help prevent them from being permanently "borrowed" by you know who.
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SAFETY WARNING
BEWARE: DO NOT ASSUME that any subject matter or procedure or process is safe or correct or appropriate just because it was mentioned in a news/user group or was included in these files or on this site or on any other web site or was published in a magazine or book or video. Working with metals and machinery and chemicals and electrical equipment is inherently dangerous. Wear safety devices and clothing as appropriate. Remove watches, rings, and jewellery -- and secure or remove loose clothing -- before operating any machine. Read, understand and follow the latest operating procedures and safety instructions provided by the manufacturer of your machine or tool or product. If you do not have those most recent official instructions, acquire a copy through the manufacturer before operating or using their product. Where the company no longer exists, use the appropriate news or user group to locate an official copy. Be careful -- original instructions may not meet current safety standards. Updated safety information and operating instructions may also be available through a local club, a local professional in the trade, a local business, or an appropriate government agency. In every case, use your common sense before beginning or taking the next step; and do not proceed if you have any questions or doubts about any procedure, or the safety of any procedure. Follow all laws and codes, and employ certified or licenced professionals as required by those laws or codes. Hazardous tasks beyond your competence or expertise should also be contracted to professionals. Let's be really careful out there. |
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