Hi,

I have some color coded texsolv heddles that I would like to put on the Jane loom to make it easier to see which shaft I am on when threading and when solving threading errors.

I have 4 colors, and was considering doing
Shaft 1 White
Shaft 2 black
Shaft 3 white
shaft 4 red
shaft 5 white
shaft 6 blue
shaft 7 white
shaft 8 orange

There are 100 heddles to each bundle.

If I add these on the alternating shafts as listed, and the bars have white heddles at one end, (the original 100, pushed out of the way, is the weight of the old 100 heddles in white enough to distort the weaving? Do I need to take the white ones off the even shafts?

Thanks,
Julia in Montana

Hello Julia- if I were you I would probably just take the extra white heddles off, as it's very straightforward on the Jane loom. Depending on what weaving structure you are using you will presumably need to change the number of heddles on each shaft occasionally anyway. I doubt the extra heddles would cause any significant distortion in your weaving, especially if you split them and move half to either side of the shaft (but I am open to correction on that!).
I can see how using the different coloured heddles might help to avoid threading errors alright. I only have white heddles and rely on the 'check, check and check again' mantra as I am threading....and still the odd error creeps in now and then!

In my experience, I just distribute the extra heddles amongst the threaded ones If I need the full width of my table looms....this includes unused heddles on shafts 5-8 if I am only needing 4 shafts.

This isn't an issue on my David 3 floor loom as there's plenty of extra rooms on the shafts.