Make your own raddle
A bunch of nails and a stick of wood. A raddle is a very helpful and necessary little device to allow you to warp your loom from back to front. It’s designed with evenly spaced guides so that you can roughly spread apart your warp threads before winding it into the back beam. It shouldn’t cost you $90, but if you buy one new, that’s what it’ll run up to… Sure the store bought ones will be nicely finished and perfectly aligned, and it’s possible that they’ll include a fabulous closing top thing to prevent your threads from accidentally slipping out of the raddle.
But we decided to go the cheap route… a $3 box of 1 1/2″ bright finishing nails and a $3 stick of wood from Home Depot. Carina helped me mark every 1/2″ inch along the stick and pre-drilled tiny little holes at the markings. I had the easy job of hammering the nails into the pre-drilled spots. You probably don’t need to pre-drill, but it makes the process a little easier.
We’ve clamped this raddle on top of the shafts of the Baby Wolf, Leclerc Artisat, and also the little Schacht 15″ table loom and put warps on this way. Super handy and fast. I guess I have no excuse not to warp from back to front now.
Tags: raddle
Handmade is definitely the way to go. I mean, who wants to buy something from a store when you can make a one of a kind item? Your raddle looks great!
I was going to say, you could put a rubber band across the nails, or wind a bit of string, to keep it from jumping out. But with my nose against the computer screen, it looks like you already did that.
Soon as I’m sure I need one, I’m going to make a hackling rake much the same way.
This is great. Just what I’ve been looking for. I too resent paying big money for a nicely presented shop model and am going to go and buy some nails and a hunk of wood right now!