I usually warp sectionally but am learning the TC2 way using a warping mill, trapeze, weights and warp chains.
This is my new Louet Warping Mill. I don’t have a lot of experience with warping mills but this one seems to work well. What I like:
- spins freely
- easy to put together
- folds flat for storage
- peg design is handy
What I don’t love:
- I wish it was a little taller. Winding more than 12 yards with lots of threads might be tricky.
- It needs a brake but I think I can rig something up to hold it steady when I am chaining.
- Long warps make me a little dizzy as in motion sick.
My husband repurposed the Brio Train Table he made for our son a long time ago as a stand for the warping mill. It breaks down and folds away also.
I am winding 6 threads at a time and need a thread by thread cross on one end for threading and a raddle cross at the other end to make it easier to divide the threads at the raddle. The TC2 has 6 ends per module per centimeter so winding 6 in hand makes all kind of sense. My first warp will be set up 3 modules deep so 3 groups of 6 threads per centimeter in the raddle.
I laser cut a warping paddle out of acrylic for the thread handling and wood for the handles. The parts are put together with a binding screw and post I had in my stash. That’s it on the table next to the warping mill in the picture above.
The first bout took me hours, not kidding. The threads were tangling and the process was less than smooth. I rearranged the threads and put all of the tubes on axels so that the yarn came off the tube without imparting any additional twist. The drag on the axel created a little tension which made the process about 3000% better. Bouts 2, 3 and 4 were much faster and in better control.
I chose to put choke ties on one side of the mill but after winding on I think I will double up on the number of chokes. Each side of the warping mill is around 22 inches so that put the chokes 7 ft apart and that was too far. Also, I need to tie the ends of the bouts with shoe strings or something really heavy to make it easier to sort the loops out. I used 3/2 cotton and it wasn’t sufficiently hefty to make it a no brainer.