Have been looking at the available jigs and have two questions.

What is the purpose of the left jig?

Where does one put the "left threads" when turning the rod?

Thanks in advance,
Quintin

Quintin, The purpose for the Left jig is to hold the Object threads which are "active" in the pattern. The Right jig holds the threads that are "Innactive" or not in use. To answer the question on placement when turning, my rod is held stationary and the background thread is placed in a Bobbin for wrapping.
Hope this helps, good luck .....



Pat Barnard
Pat's Custom Rods

Sorry, I meant:

What is the purpose of the RIGHT jig.

Why wouldn't I just tape the threads down on that side?


Also, when turning the rod, do the "left threads" get taped down onto the left jig, or are they packed into one of the slots in the jig?

Quintin...the whole purpose of the jig is to eliminate the need to use tape to hold down the threads.

You are on the right track, both sides of the jig are meant to hold the threads depending if they are "in or out" of the pattern, or as you put it "packed into the slots.

Hope this helps...the first time it is a little confusing until you actually see it in action.

Steve S.

Keep in mind that you aren't "taping the threads down" , you are using the tape with the sticky side up to hold the threads in place while doing a weave. On long weaves, the stickyness gets less and less and finally you have threads falling off the tape driving you nuts. Also, when doing large weaves, say with 70 weave threads, its more difficult to keep track of the individual threads using tape verses a loom.
With a loom, you can do the pattern over several days and not worry about the tape loosing its grip.
Once I mastered using looms, my weave time was cut in half and the whole process to me is much more injoyable and the end result is better.
good luck, the more weaves you do, the easier it gets, you'll be doing your own patterns in no time-

I think I have a handle on this but I have never seen it done.

Just wondering where folks temporarily put the "active"- "left" threads when they are turning the rod?

Thanks

Jim,
What loom would you recommend. I am beginning also, and only want to buy one loom, even if it is a more complicated one. I have seen several, each one professing to be the easiest and the best. I suppose asking a person with the experience you have will be the best approach.
Thanks,
Sanford Hochman

I recomend you email Kerry Hanson about weaving jig
roddesigner@aol.com. Kerry is a master with weaving

Thanks Robert,
I will look him up on the website.
Sanford

The "active" left threads are in the left loom when the rod is turned for each weave step. When you start a weave pattern all threads are in the right loom. Individual weave threads are placed in the left loom for each step depending on the pattern. During a weave, you are constantly moving the threads back and forth from right to left. Cam Clarks video as well as the one by Doc Ski show the entire process. I originally learned by watching Cam's video, Doc's was also helpful

Jim,

Thanks for the explanation.

When you say that the active threads are in the left loom, do you put them in the corresponding slots (#13 active thread goes in the #13 slot on the left loom on top of the #13 inactive thread, AND the # 14 active threads go in the #14 slot....) OR do you jam all of the active threads in one slot.


Thanks

Each loom, the right and left are basically identical, so yes, thread 13 has it's own slot in each loom. That way, it's very easy to keep track of your threads which is important when doing patterns with alot of threads. Most of my recent fish patterns use 70 threads and the loom greatly simplfies the whole weaving process.
I haven't seen the more complicated and expensive looms where the rod does not turn . I do know that the foam based looms are used by folks like Doc Ski to weave very complicated muti-color patterns.