My New Leclerc Artisat

I'm starting up the blog again.  At least for a little while.  I've just purchased a used loom, and I'm not thrilled with the amount of information I'm finding on the internet about it (maintaining it, using it, etc.), so I'm going to contribute my experience.

Let's start with pictures:

These are the pictures I got from the previous owner.  It shows the loom in one piece, front, side, and folded.  Obviously, a foldable loom is a great option if you're going to have a floor loom and don't have tons of space.  This will even fold when it has a project going.

My friend Lisa and I drove all day to pick it up.  It wouldn't fit in my car, so she generously agreed to take me down in her Murano.











It's quite old.  It's a loom that you can still buy new, but this is a near-original version.  It has very few plastic parts.  But it's also got a lot of rusty bits.

And now it's in a bunch of small, rusty pieces.

Front: without beater or harnesses

Back: without beater or harnesses

The treadles:

All the small hardware is in baggies, and I'll be heading to Home Depot to replace them.  So rusty.  I unrolled the aprons to air them out.  The whole loom smells a little musty.  Somehow the worst are the reeds.  All four reeds and the roll of cardboard are out on the deck in the fresh air.

Plans: clean all the wood with Murphy Oil Soap, and treat it with Howard Feed-N-Wax.  I need to clean the heddles and the reeds, and a few other metal parts.  Oh, and decide where to put it.