No Studebaker work today!
The manual steering gearbox came in for the Massey Ferguson tractor I'm repairing. So I removed the transmission cover.
And dressed out the steering gear with the shift lever from the old cover.
Then installed the steering gear and let the gasket material set.
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My loom has been out of service for over two years. The reed was rusty when I bought it, I cleaned it up and it was fine for cotton and polyester yarn but I have some antique wool yarn in the loom and it was catching on the reed and breaking. I bought a stainless steel reed in January of 2015 and installed it today. I had been putting it off (really) but with some ladies coming for demonstrations I need to get the loom running.
Longitudinal yarn is called the warp, yarn you weave into the warp is called weft. Here the warp is through the heddles. They are little wires with eyes in them. There are lots of spare heddles in groups. They are attached to one of four frames which are lifted independently to allow you to throw the shuttle containing the weft thread through with half the warp threads lifted. Then you lower the frame and lift the other half of the threads to throw the shuttle back through. You lift the frames with foot pedals. Then the reed, a frame with a row of fine wires, is used to pack the weft against the woven material. It is great fun to weave when you get a rhythm going. There will be a test later.
So I interrupted weaving two and a half years ago. Today I pulled the warp back through the reed, installed the new reed, and started pulling one warp thread at a time through the reed. They have to be kept in order the same as they come through the heddles. These are in order, first thread through a heddle on the back frame, next a heddle on the next frame, then the next, and the fourth thread is through a heddle on the front frame. Then the next thread is in a back frame heddle, an so on and on and on. You can attach the thread to frames in a different combination depending on the weave pattern you want. You also can lift the frames in varying order to make different weave patterns. A herringbone, for instance. Here's the view from the other side showing a few of the green warp threads pulled through. There are 12 threads to a color, nine sets, 108 threads in this warp. It's to make winter mufflers. If I alternate weft 12 passes per color I'll have a standard square plaid.
I slowly got a rhythm going and got 3/4 of the warp in place.
I put this off for so long because I thought it might take several hours to get it all done. It didn't, but I ran out of time and ran out to Zumba
Next the warp gets tied off to the canvas on the front roller, you tension it up and the fun begins

Knit one, purl two! Ummm, that's something else.
Thanks for stopping by, all you car enthusiasts!
