Different Apron Cords on a Kromski Loom

Kromski several years back changed the apron cords on their looms. At one time you received a long strand of nylon cord and the Kromski instructions told you to cut the cord into equal lengths and form looms with the cord which required holding the cord ends together in a candle and hoping to get them to melt - which meant needing to do this for all cords to come out to equal length loops which is not always easy. Then they decided to change how to use this long length of cord and put a screw at each end of the warp and cloth beams and tied the cord between the screws and showed in their new instructions how to wrap the cord around the apron rods to form "V"s to hold the apron rod loosely in place.

This works if you are using their "warp helper" block to warp your loom but did not work well when I tried to use this when direct warping. The problem on a 32" wide loom was emphasized when the dowel rod would dip down on one end while warping the other end and across. Some love this new setup and if it works for you don't change it. But I struggled with this for several months and then went out looking for an alternative.

I could have cut the cords into pieces and used the old instructions which are still easy to find on the internet to cut and burn the loops together and use them as they used to be uses. But I really did not like that. I looked to see what other looms do. One other company uses a plastic band to hold the rod to the beam. Another uses something called TexSolv - a product commonly used in multi-shaft weaving. The feature of TexSolv is that it is nylon cord made up of a chain of small loops that make it easy to put an end through one of those loops, pull and have the length of the cord on the loom exact as long as you you put the cord end through the same loop counting up.

I decided that the TexSolv was a great way to put the apron rods onto the beams and I went out to find it. If there is no weaving store near you, several of the weaving websites sell TexSolv. Some have better prices than others. Be aware that this cord is EXPENSIVE. You can buy it by the foot and you can buy it on a spool. I decided - not being sure how much I would need and not sure if at some point I would want to replace the TexSolv cords with new ones - to buy a spool.

Schacht has an excellent video on how to put TexSolv cord on the apron rods and beams of their Rigid Heddle looms and this process is the same for the Kromski. Here is a link to how it is done -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPGVyv3z8T8

Here is how it looks on my loom. Compare this photo to the one above. The apron rod is securely tied to the beam. You will see the two end cords not around the dowel - this is to keep tension off the ends of the dowel when weaving less than the full width of the loom. All I need to do is slip those back over the ends of the dowel.The best thing is that it is so easy to get equal lengths cord that enable your apron rod that you warp and tie onto the same distance from your heddle across the entire length of the apron rod.

Here are some close ups and you can easily see how this cord is constructed with small loops.

A small investment made using the apron rods so much easier. And you can easily slip cords off the dowels for narrow projects to put even tension on the dowels.

A Simple Tip When Warping a Rigid Heddle Loom

My Kromski loom came with something that Kromski calls a "Warp Helper". It is a block of wood with a rectangular slot in the bottom and a hole through the top - for the apron dowel to slide through to hold the dowel while you warp. On my 32" loom the dowel both pulls this block off the edge of the loom that you are supposed to push it down on and the length of the dowel cannot be supported by a single block like this. I tried to make my own similar blocks and none really were very satisfactory. The idea is that the warp dowel needs to be held while the warp is being tied on to it. I have since watched Kromski's video on using this and saw that if one were warping on a warping board and then transfering the yarn to the loom to tie onto the warp beam, the Kromski warp helper will work, but when direct warping - which is so common with a rigid heddle loom - the block does not work well.

So what to do to hold the warp dowel when warping - and then again hold the cloth side dowel when tying on the warp on that side? The answer just came to me one day and it is SO simple that it is just silly that this is not shown all of the time!

I used rubber bands. Not special rubber bands but thick and strong rubber bands. These are the type of rubber bands that the post office uses. And they can be found where stationary is sold - Walmart, Staples, or other office stores or stationary sections in a bag of many for just a few dollars. You will get more rubber bands in that bag than you will ever need. Here in photos I can show you much easier what I am talking about.

You have your apron rod or dowel that you are going to tie your first warp thread on, and take a loop from that thread through your heddle slot to your warping peg and back again - but the dowel is just hanging there. Wouldn't it be easier if it was up and supported in front of you - straight across the back of the loom?  Take a look here -

Here you can see the apron rod for the warp - in the back of the loom. You are looking from the front to the back. See how the rod (what the warp loops around) is sticking straight across - with its cords stretched out behind it connected to the warp beam. Now look to the left of the photo from the end of the heddle back. Wait - here is a close up of that -

See the rubber band? So simple. There is a rubber band on each side of the loom. One end of one rubber band goes around the top of the heddle block and the other end goes around the end of the apron rod (or dowel). Do this on each side. Put the rubber band on, and crank back your apron rod to put some tension on the rubber band. Position the rod where it is comfortable for you to tie and wrap onto it as you warp. Can you believe how simple this is.

Now, once you have all of your warp on the warp apron rod, take the rubber bands off BEFORE you start winding your warp on the warp beam. This is easy to forget - but you will not be happy if you leave those two rubber bands in place. BUT just put them aside, you still need them!


The warp is all set on the warp beam. You have taken one warp out of each slot and put it in the adjacent hole. You are now ready to tie it on the front beam. And you are going to use your rubber bands again. You will do the exact same thing but now on the front dowel.

Take a look -  

It is hard to see but there is a rubber band on both the left and the right sides. Here is a close up of the right side.

With the dowel straight across and being held in place with the rubber bands, start tying your warp on the front beam. Here are close ups of the rubber bands going around the top of the heddle block and dowel end.

Once you start tying your warp bundles on to the dowel and you have enough evenly on both sides of the dowel to support the rod with the warp, you can take the rubber bands off. I have left them on until the end, but I have been finding that they might interfere with getting a good tension before you make your final adjustments of each bundle to get even tension on each. No matter what - you must take these rubber bands OFF BEFORE you start to make your adjustments of tension on each bundle. If you don't you will not have correct tension on your warp to weave with.

You can certainly use each rubber band many times but if you use two that have stretched out unevenly, you will put your dowel at an angle. Just take a look at how far each end of the dowel is from the heddle - the two measurements should be equal. A simple ruler put from the heddle to the dowel on each end will tell you immediately if you need to put these rubber bands aside and take two new ones. Those rubber bands are still good - for the usual uses for rubber bands.

This will work on any Rigid Heddle Loom - as long as there is part of the heddle block sticking up to put the rubber band around.

So you see, two simple rubber bands can make a job that potentially can be frustrating simple and easy!

Another way to Direct Warp

Direct warping is a method of measuring the yarn for your warp at the same time that you are putting it on the loom. The usual method of direct warping - and there are many free videos on YouTube to show how to do this - is to clamp an vertical peg to a table (some use the top of a chair back) that is the distance from the apron dowel of your loom that the warp is to be long, and warp from the back of the loom tying your first warp thread to the apron dowel and then passing a loop of that warp through the first slot you have calculated to start your warp in to go across the loom the number of slots and holes also calculated. The heddle hook or slay hook is used to pick up the loop from the opposite side of the heddle, through the slot toward you and then catching the loop and pulling from back to front through that slot. This puts TWO warp threads (it is a loop that is going through) now on the cloth side of the heddle. You get up, take that loop in your fingers and walk it across the room to the warping peg and place the loop over and down on the vertical peg. You carry the yarn now back with you to the loom and then continue with the warp thread (placed under the loom on the warp side) and keep passing loops through. This is a simplified explanation of the process.

Now, what can go wrong? Well, if you put too much tension on that warp loop as you carry it down to the peg, you transfer that tension to the warp on the peg when you put it on - and you may just find that the peg comes flying off the table - and all the warp becomes a tangled mess on the floor - sometimes impossible to get straightened out - and usually just as you were about to finish the warp. That is one thing that can go wrong. Another problem is that if the peg is not tall enough, you can run out of peg before you are finished and you will find yourself pushing it all down as best you can to make more room. And still another problem is that with the warp going across the loom to a single point - the peg - you create a V from peg to loom with the closed end of the V at the peg. The distance from each side of the loom to the middle will be at different lengths.

So what can you do about this. I was a wonderful idea shared on one of the Weaving Facebook groups by a very smart lady, Ingrid Koch. She came up with a horizontal warping rod instead of a warping peg. As I recall, she used a curtain rod. I looked at her idea and decided to come up with something a little stronger and a way to secure it to a table.

I decided to use a thick wood dowel - about 3/4" in diameter and three feet wide. My loom is 32" wide so the 36" long dowel was more than enough for a full warp across the loom. Here is a photo of what I came up with -

What you see here are two stand brackets to hold the rod. The table they are on is a garden folding table from IKEA and I bought this table for this purpose - and to use for other weaving related tasks. With this table the brackets are held down to the surface of the table with a screw bolt passed up through the slot of the table through the bracket and tightened on with a wing nut - there is a washer both above and below the bracket. One bracket is cut shorter than the other, but the bottom of the slot that holds the dowel start at the same height from the table.

 
The rod is level across sitting in the brackets. One side is short because this is the side of the rod that will be lifted to slide the warp loop onto. The other bracket is taller so that the dowel does not slip off as the other end is lifted up.  In this photo you will see a permanent mark in the exact middle of the dowel. You know when you are half way across your heddle your warp should be right there at that mark on the dowel. There are two pieces of removable painters tape that mark the point the first loop should be placed next to - since I warp right to left - that would be the edge of the tape on the right and the spot the last loop is placed - that is the tape on the left. What you see on the right end (outside the bracket on the dowel) is a bubble level. I will explain why that is there later.

So now instead of walking to a vertical peg, with this you walk to the left end of the dowel, lift that end enough to get the warp loop over, and drop the warp loop down at the dowel starting at the edge of the right piece of tape. Let's say I am warping a warp that is to be 104" each warp thread. That warp loop is now 104 inches away from the apron dowel going through the first slot I am warping. The next loop goes right next to that - again 104" long. This goes on for the full width of the warp. When you are done you will have a very straight warp from the warping dowel through the slots in the heddle to and across the apron dowel. This will be the same when the warp is wound onto the warp beam under tension. Every warp thread the same length. All nice and neatly lined up across the beam. If the warp is 12 inches across the apron dowel, it will be 12 inches across the warping rod.

With this, it is hard for the warp to fly off. The brackets are securely attached - you could put these on any table edge using two soft faced wood clamps found at any home or tool store. You have a length of dowel to hold your warp as long as the number of slots you are warping through. You don't have to put a lot of tension on the warp - just enough to keep it from sagging.

Let me step aside a moment to say this - when you are direct warping, your main goal is to measure the warp length and not to put tension on the warp. The tension will be put on by your helper when you wind on the warp on the warp beam.

When you or your partner are taking the rod off the brackets when you are ready to wind the warp onto the back beam, lift it straight up off the brackets just high enough to clear them. You now need to get this to the front of the table. This is easy with this particular table that I picked as it is a gate leg table and what my wife does (who is my warping helper) is move the gate leg closed with her foot from the back of the table and the top comes down. With a table that you cannot do this with, move the rod forward to the front of the table(the tension will be lost but don't worry as the length will not change). Get around to the front and have your helper get hold of the rod  and you move the table so that there is room to get tension back on the warp on the rod. If you remove the warp from the rod at the table, you can warp as you usually would do by tying a string or yarn around all of the warp, and then weight that and warp alone. If you have a helper and you leave the warp on the rod held level and straight as you wind on you will get a nice even warp each thread lying next to each other on your back beam. An alternative is to weight down the table. Leave the warp on the rod and the rod in the brackets, start winding on and let the loom be pulled toward the table and the rod as you wind. Get up and walk behind the loom as you do this.

I mention here about hold the rod level. I find that this makes a difference in getting a good wind when using a rod like this. That mystery item on the right end of the rod in the first photo is a little bubble level. You can find these for a few dollars in Walmart in the Auto section where they have a section of RV supplies. It is a package of two and these little levels have peel and stick adhesive on the bottom. Stick it on the end of the rod and then whoever is holding the rod while you are winding on will see the bubble and if it is not in the middle the rod (dowel) is not level. Move that end up or down a little and the bubble goes to the middle. I added this when my wife said that it looked level as she was holding the dowel in her two hands but was not sure. I could see from across the room that it was way off. She can now see the level and adjust the dowel as needed.

If you leave the warp on the dowel until it gets to the front of the loom, you will have a nice even wind on the beam - every warp thread lined up on the beam just as it will come off the beam while weaving. Thread your holes following the order and you will have no crossed warp threads coming off the warp beam!

This works. I was not happy with the direct warp vertical peg. This solved all of the problems I was having with it!

ADDENDUM:

I have been asked about the size of the table. Here are the dimensions of the table - 28.5" high, 24.5" wide, with one gate leg up - 29.75" long, and with the two gate legs up - 51.75" long.  The table is heavy and I purposely looked for a heavy table so that the table would not move when warping.  The slats in the top make it easy to anchor the brackets. This table from IKEA is an outdoor table - available during the Spring and summer months.This link will bring you to the IKEA page for this table (as long as IKEA still offers this table) -   https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/aepplaroe-gateleg-table-outdoor-brown-stained-brown-50208535/