Last year I was gifted with a Dryad Rug Loom. It needed some serious TLC, but what with the weather being what it was, I didn't get the chance to do any serious work to it all year. So it has been sitting in the dining room, with a warping board propped up against it for some time.
However, with the forecast for sun on Saturday - I decided now was the best opportunity to get it in to the garden and get my sander out. So Friday evening I (and my helpful father) shifted the loom from the house to the garage.
Saturday I dug it back out and placed it in the garden.
It doesn't look too bad in this picture - but moving it can be treacherous! I ended up with a very nasty splinter of wood digging in to my finger that required tweezers to remove it. I knew the wood was very dry, and there was no way I was warping it up when several parts of it were prone to splintering.
I sanded it down using my sander for the majority of the frame, and sanded by hand the harder to reach places by good old fashioned elbow grease!
Eventually it looked like this...
During all the sanding I noticed that my loom had, during its previous life, acquired a name. I had uncovered the maker's small badge (out of, at a guess, brass) during sanding, but I also found, scratched into the frame, '{ H E C T O R}'. I know the frame at one point was either in a hospital or a place for occupational therapy, and rescued when it was being thrown out. Was Hector someone who loved using the loom so much that he wanted everyone to know it was his? Did he dislike it so much he felt the need to mark it? Was he bored and decide to scratch his name on the loom? I will never know. What I do know was that it took some serious effort to engrave his name in to the wood the way he did. So I decided against trying to sand it off and immediately renamed the loom Hector.
Hector seems a justly deserved name for a loom. He's a very privileged loom - he has both a first name, Hector, and a surname, Dryad. He doesn't like being shifted from pillar to post and will happily stab you with splinters if you disrespect him.
I knew I had to stop his wood from being so dry, so once I had finished with the sanding, I moved Hector back in to the garage and managed to use teak oil on him to give the wood a drink it desperately needed! I don't have any pictures of that - as I find it gets everywhere and is very sticky! A quick inspection afterwards revealed that he probably needs another coat - so when I get a chance I shall get back out there and get on with it.
I've still got more to do once Hector has another coat of oil. The cord fixing the treadles to the shafts needs replacing. I still need to sand the bottom of the loom which I skipped doing yesterday. I need to replace the hooks and springs. Brush down the metal shaft supports and treat them, and give the material attached to the warp beams a good clean. However, getting a loom like this back into working condition is such a pleasure I cannot wait to get on with it all. I want to be able to use him for the purpose he was created for. Saturday was a step in the right direction. A few more paces and I can set him up and get making on him. I look forward to that day.
