The last few years I’ve been learning various new crafting and making skills—fiber spinning is a big one since that fits with the knitting I’ve been doing for years. I’d been thinking of weaving, but one of the roadblocks was the cost of a quality loom. I’d been keeping an eye out for a used rigid heddle loom but kept missing out on the ones in my price range. I had the good fortune that someone in my town was giving a Leclerc Meco table loom away for free (it had been given to them and they had no intention of restoring it or using it). It’s from 1975 and still has the original price tag from a shop from about an hour from me that is now closed. It had quite a bit of rust, but was otherwise in good working order.
It came with a warping board (in need of a replacement peg that I still need to replace), shuttle, threading hook, lease sticks, the original specialty screwdriver, and a couple of books to get me started (no one knows what the metal rods are for, I’ve asked around in various groups and at stores. If you have any ideas, let me know).
I gave it a good wipe down with Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove 44 years worth of grime, followed by Howard’s Feed-N-Wax to recondition the wood (as much as you can after 44 years of sitting on a shelf). I may refinish it when I have the time to take everything apart, sand it, stain it, and lacquer it (or use Danish oil).
Most of the metal parts were rusted. I soaked the metal parts that could be salvaged in Evapo-Rust…
…but the heddles and reed were too far gone, so I ordered replacements from The Woolery It now has 128 insert eye heddles per shaft and a stainless steel 12 dent reed,
Now she’s good as pretty and twice as new.
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