I’m not a big fan of warping mills, chains and a trapese. Call me old fashioned but I’ve gotten used to sectional warping on my Louets Megado and Delta and I like it. I’ve used a spool rack and tension box before but usually I use my Warping Square made by Sawyer Bee (not sure they are still making these, it is similar to the AVL Warping Wheel).
When I was waiting on my loom to arrive I worked on a number of sectional warping ideas for the TC2 – the best used laser cut disks that slid over the beam and were held apart by rods placed in the beam grooves. The length of the rods could be altered to change the bout size. Regardless of the method, I was going to need to build a frame to hold the beam since the TC2 winds on at the speed of oil paint drying.
I rearranged my Louet looms in the main part of our house (my TC2 got its own room) and got to looking at the provisions for a supplemental warp beam on my Delta. I wondered if I could use that supplemental warp beam idea to support my TC2 beam. Further, could I use the sectional warping “U”s on the Delta’s warp beam to wind on a warp and then transfer it smoothly to the TC2 beam?
I had hoped that the Delta supplementary back beam would just slide into the TC2 beam but it was too big. I had some nice wood in the garage so my husband helped me make a straight piece of wood that slid snugly into the TC2 beam extrusion. I laser cut end pieces in several 6mm layers to hold an axel exactly in the center of the wood and then adapted the supplementary back beam parts from the Delta for use on my new custom TC2 beam support.
Here’s a video of how it went down. Apart from a really sloppy bout (how on earth does that happen????) that I had to fix by tying weavers knots to snug up the straggly bits, I am very pleased with the results.
Now that I have a support for the TC2 beam I might try the direct supplemental warping discs and spacers. Who knows?
I’ve adapted the Dreaming Robots cone winder to wind spools but I will want to expand my spool rack to hold 90 spools (2 inches in my 3 wide, 3 deep TC2 configuration) OR I can have another go at the Warping Square. I think the most I can get on the Square is 15 yards for 90 threads using cottolin – probably a lot longer using a finer thread.