A grand-daughter has requested an Inkle loom for her birthday.  Working out details with her and her mom.  I'd never heard of one before.  Let the adventure begin!

 

 

Yep, that's 2 of us that hasn't heard of them (until now).

I'm sure grandpa can build it.   Danl

Yeah, Gramps, you got this!

 

That's just a couple of hours. And most of that will be waiting for finish to dry.

17 hours ago, kmealy said:

Working out details with her and her mom.  I'd never heard of one before.  Let the adventure begin!

 Okay, let's think about the very first person that had a vision of all these threads strung around all those rods and said, "I can build that". The amazing fact is they did build it because we are looking at one! I get the popcorn!

It turns out her older sister also does this weaving, so I asked if I should  just make 2.  She said that would save some arguments.

 

Then she wondered if I could make a bunch of "kits" so they could hold a workshop with their friends.

 

Can you say "escalation?"

 

One of the current problems is that I am getting photos of a commercial one, and I found two plans online (as well as a bunch of photos).   The online planes are from people who assume you just basically know what end of a screwdriver to hold and you'll get all the materials at Home Depot.   Geez, just give me a measured drawing. I had to use an engineer's scale to go off the photo to get some of the critical dimensions.

 

No good deed shall go unpunished!

 

Go ahead and admit it. You were ecstatic when they asked for more.

Got them done 

 

Love that lettering, how did you do that?

1 hour ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

Love that lettering, how did you do that?

One of my daughters has a Cricut.  It's sort of a CNC that cuts special vinyl cutouts.  Tough part was selecting among the 1100+ fonts.   Kay is all uppercase so that we didn't have to worry about the descendant on the "y" in lower case.

 

Miriam asked if I could burn in her name, but I haven't had a wood burner in 60+ years.

Keith, those are amazing and I am sure blow anything away on the market with that wood selection! Nice job grandpa!!!!!

Very cool Keith! 

 

 But you've got me on how the heck do they work? 

As far as I've heard, the threads are raised and lowered by hand (as opposed to foot levers on a big loom).  The shuttles are on the foreground.

 

My grandkids are involved in a Finnish dance troop for youth.  The males wear a  vest with these straps as waistbands.  The area they live in has a lot of Finnish heritage.  There were some major copper mines there from the 1800s up to WWII and many of the miners came from Finland.  Many of the streets have an English and Finnish street sign name.

 

My two grandsons are the redheads in the center and granddaughters are at the 2 and 7 o'clock outer ring positions.

 

Excellent Keith!

12 hours ago, kmealy said:

My grandkids are involved in a Finnish dance troop for youth.

Love this, absolutely awesome! Keeping the roots alive!