{"id":4037,"date":"2012-09-03T20:02:19","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T01:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/?p=4037"},"modified":"2012-09-06T06:40:29","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T11:40:29","slug":"split-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/2012\/09\/split-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Split decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I did what I planned, and wove the exact same pattern, exact same fiber, exact same sett on both the Varpapuu &amp; the Macomber to determine which loom I would keep and which I would sell.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/rayon-pinwheels.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4038\" title=\"handwoven-scarves-rayon-pinwheels\" src=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/rayon-pinwheels.jpg\" alt=\"handwoven rayon pinwheels scarves\" width=\"450\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/rayon-pinwheels.jpg 450w, https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/rayon-pinwheels-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/rayon-pinwheels-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/rayon-pinwheels-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nHere&#8217;s what I learned &#8212; I still don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p>Each loom had a warp long enough for two scarves. First I wove scarf #1 on the Varpa. It was fine. I was sure I&#8217;d like it better than the Mac. Instead of weaving both on the Varpa &amp; then both on the Mac, I thought it would be best if I did one scarf on each. So I went to the Mac for scarf #1 there.<\/p>\n<p>What?! I was shocked that I thought I liked weaving on the Mac better! That was <em>so<\/em> not what I was expecting; I had sort of set the Mac up to fail, but it didn&#8217;t. What the heck did <em>that<\/em> mean?<\/p>\n<p>So I went back to the Varpa for scarf #2 there. Again, I liked it. Each loom has its pluses &amp; minuses. Maybe I should identify what I like and dislike about each.<br \/>\n<strong>Varpa pluses<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I love the way the brake works<\/li>\n<li>I like that I can expand it to 12 harnesses with minimal cost<\/li>\n<li>The loom itself is a thing of beauty<\/li>\n<li>I love how quiet it is when I&#8217;m weaving<\/li>\n<li>I like the knee beam<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Varpa minuses<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I don&#8217;t like the fact that it takes up an entire room; I thought I&#8217;d want a loom that could weave 48&#8243;, but since having one in the house, decided it&#8217;s not important to me<\/li>\n<li>Because it&#8217;s so wide, I can&#8217;t really reach the brake and set the tension while I&#8217;m seated; I have to get up every time<\/li>\n<li>While I don&#8217;t mind the weight of the beater as I&#8217;m weaving (<em>much<\/em> heavier than the beater on my Mac or my counterbalance) I wonder about the long term impact on my back, shoulders, neck, and arms<\/li>\n<li>I don&#8217;t like the fact that it only has 8 treadles; yes, I could have 2 more made by a woodworker, but that&#8217;s an additional expense. \u00c2\u00a0Plus, if I want to expand to 12 harnesses I&#8217;d want 14 treadles, and I don&#8217;t know that there&#8217;s room for that in the loom construction<\/li>\n<li>I don&#8217;t like the &#8216;floating&#8217; treadles, nor how little space there is between them; yes, I could have a treadle gate made, but again, that&#8217;s an additional expense<\/li>\n<li>I timed it &#8211; it took me 45 minutes to do the tie up; that&#8217;s a long time for each setup<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mac pluses<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I like the foot rest bar &#8211; it&#8217;s a brilliant design feature<\/li>\n<li>I like the amount of space between the treadles &#8211; it&#8217;s easy to find the correct one<\/li>\n<li>I like that I could expand it to 10 harnesses &amp; 12 treadles if I want to<\/li>\n<li>I like that the tieup is quick &#8211; just under 15 minutes<\/li>\n<li>I like that it fits in my space well &#8211; a fairly small footprint for its capacity<\/li>\n<li>I like the fact that I can release the brake and set the tension from my seat<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mac minuses<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I don&#8217;t like how noisy it is<\/li>\n<li>I don&#8217;t like the fact that sometimes the harnesses stick in the up position, or that the treadle clips sometimes pop off<\/li>\n<li>I wish it could weave to 36&#8243; wide instead of its 32&#8243; capacity<\/li>\n<li>Biggest minus of all &#8211; the Mac has a habit of separating my weft as it goes over the breast beam. \u00c2\u00a0I had thought it was me, that there was something I was doing wrong &#8211; particularly that I was leaning against the finished fabric as it was on the breast beam causing the problem. \u00c2\u00a0This time I paid particular attention, and made certain I didn&#8217;t do that. \u00c2\u00a0But the problem occurred anyway. \u00c2\u00a0Yet only on the Mac, not the Varpa, so it is obviously a Mac problem.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Here&#8217;s a shot of the fabric before it goes over the breast beam&#8230;<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4039\" title=\"pinwheels-over-mac-beam\" src=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pinwheels-mac-over.jpg\" alt=\"pinwheels over Mac breast beam\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pinwheels-mac-over.jpg 300w, https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pinwheels-mac-over-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and here&#8217;s what it looks like after it passes over the breast beam. Note the red lines, pointing to where it has separated or crammed that weft.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pinwheels-mac-under.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4040\" title=\"pinwheels-under-mac-breast-beam\" src=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pinwheels-mac-under.jpg\" alt=\"pinwheels under the Mac breast beam\" width=\"286\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pinwheels-mac-under.jpg 286w, https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/pinwheels-mac-under-143x150.jpg 143w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Fortunately those problems came out in the wet finishing &#8211; this time; they haven&#8217;t always. \u00c2\u00a0Ultimately, if I can&#8217;t weave the kind of cloth I want to on the Mac, the decision is made, regardless of its other positive attributes.<\/p>\n<p>So I went to Weavolution &amp; asked if others had had this problem on a Mac, &amp; if so, how they resolved it. <a href=\"http:\/\/weavolution.com\/forum\/weaving\/macomber-pulls-weaving-apart-23718\" target=\"_blank\">I got some great answers<\/a>, and I&#8217;m working on implementation. After I get done I&#8217;ll try another warp of two rayon scarves sett at 18 end per inch and see if it the problem is gone. If so, I believe I&#8217;ll sell the Varpa. If not, there&#8217;s one more fix to try before I say goodbye to the Mac.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, I have to work quickly to make this decision. My dining room table is out on the porch under a tarp to make room for the Varpa. That&#8217;s fine until the snow flies, which will come before I want it to. So, much as I&#8217;d like to really take my time and be certain, in addition to not being pressured while I&#8217;m preparing for shows, I don&#8217;t have the luxury of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I did what I planned, and wove the exact same pattern, exact same fiber, exact same sett on both the Varpapuu &amp; the Macomber to determine which loom I would keep and which I would sell.<\/p>\n<p> Here&#8217;s what I learned &#8212; I still don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p>Each loom had a warp long enough for two [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[253,528,559],"class_list":["post-4037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weaving","tag-macomber","tag-rayon","tag-varpapuu","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4037"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4043,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037\/revisions\/4043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}