This is going to be a long, picture-heavy post about my loom. Apparently there aren't a lot of this particular loom out there, and those that are out there are not well documented. The company apparently went out of business in the mid to late 1980s.
This post is not necessarily exhaustive, and not necessarily entirely correct. This is just what I have found out about this loom and about operating this loom. If anyone has any corrections or any further knowledge, please let me know and I'll make corrections.
This is a countermarche loom, and the company that made it was called Berga Ullman. (There are some Swedish or Norwegian accent marks in there somewhere, too.) As looms go, there are only a few variations in functional type. One is called a jack loom, and the other is called a counterbalance loom. On a jack loom, the harnesses or shafts are individually controlled. You can raise just one harness. On a counterbalance loom, one harness is raised and the opposite one is lowered; picture a teeter-totter. One side goes up, one goes down. In a countermarche loom, one harness goes up, and all the other harnesses go down. Or two harnesses go up, and the others go down.
The devil is in the details, and that's where my pictures come in. If you click on the pictures, they will get a little bigger. If you need close-ups of other details, let me know. Here goes:
This is a picture taken from the back of the loom. This loom is in a very small room; there is literally enough room to walk around one side of the loom, and that's about it. In this picture, you can see the upper lamms, coming together in an upside-down kind of "V" at the top center of the loom. You can also see the individual harnesses (shafts) in the middle.
This is the lower part of the back of the loom. On the left-hand side is the brake cable. You can see the lower lamms through the loom, visible between the back breast beam and the back warp beam.
This is a picture taken from the left side of the loom. I call it the left side because it would be the left if you were sitting in position as if to weave, in front of the loom. I hope that makes sense. In this picture you can better see the upper lamms (slanted), the wires that run from the harnesses up to the lamms, and one of the cats walking on the back breast beam.
Close-up from the left side, of the harnesses, beater bar, front cloth beam, treadles, front breast beam.
Upper lamms. I had to hang a sheet to cover the stuff on that shelf behind as the visual was too distracting.
The wires that connect the upper lamms, lower lamms, and harnesses run up the center of the open space in the middle of the loom, then divide near the top; one wire goes to the left set of upper lamms, the other wire goes to the right set.
The wires run in front of each harness.
From the front of each harness, they go through a hole in this cross bar, then separate so that one set attaches to the left lower lamm, and the other set attaches to the right lower lamm.
The lamms connect to the treadles with pins. The pins have a U-shape bend on one end, and an L-shaped bend on the other.
There are also wires that connect from the outside edge of each harness to the outside edge of each of the upper lamms. These work to raise the harnesses. You can see these wires on the left side of this and the following pictures.
In this picture you can see a little bit of the warp, along with the cloth beam and the treadles.
This picture shows the treadles and a little of the lower lamms.
Treadles and lower lamms; each of the lamms has five hooks. Five hooks go to the left, for the treadles on the left of center, and five on the right-hand lamms.
Close-up of lower lamms, with treadle hooks and wires connected.
Now, this loom has 8 harnesses and 10 treadles, for various treadle combinations. For each harness there is a lamm that makes that harness go up, and one that makes the harness go down. So there are 16 lamms - one for harness 1 up, harness 1 down, etc.
To do a tie-up for a countermarche loom, you have to understand that every harness needed in the pattern has to be connected to every treadle. For example, say you are going to make a 4-harness pattern in a 1-2-3-4 order.
For harness 1 to go up, harnesses 2, 3 and 4 have to go down.
For harness 2 to go up, harnesses 1, 3 and 4 have to go down.
So you move the lamms until you identify which lamms function to move which harnesses, and identify which lamm makes it move up, and which lamm makes it move down. Then you have to attach the U-shaped end of the treadle pin to the eyelet (on the previously identified lamm) that lines up with the treadle you need, and slide the L-shaped end into the slot in that treadle.
For a 4-harness pattern, you will need 16 pins - 4 pins for each treadle used in the pattern.
If this is as clear as mud, contact me and I'll do my best to help. If you need any other detail pictures of the loom, let me know that as well. I'll do what I can.
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