Finished Object!

News Flash: I won the lottery.

OK, it was only $3, but hey, it's still a win. I got one number (3) plus the Mega Ball (29) in last night's MegaMillions game. Since I've been hitting at least one number consistently for the past few weeks (winning nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling), I can only assume this is the sign that I'm on the right track... keep playing, and one of these days, I'll hit all five plus the Mega Ball.

Anyway.

The REAL News Flash is:
I have a FINISHED OBJECT of a massive kind.
Feast your eyes on this! (Ignore the black shadow in the corner please)*



If you're interested in seeing the process unfold, I've made a slideshow of the images (embedding it didn't work).

I tried to document as much of it as I could. But as I only had two hands and no helpers, I satisfied myself with photos of the stages, not every bolt. The harnesses with the 800 heddles had to be built from the ground up. They did not come that way. They came in a bundle of 800 heddles (on strings, thank God), steel harness rods, steel harness frames, wooden pieces, screws, screw eyes, etc. The only pre-assembled items were the wheel block and the cloth and warp beams (the rolling ones). Absolutely every piece of this thing was assembled one piece, one screw, one bolt, one nut, one swear word at a time by moi.

Note: Whomever said, "Oh, it'll only take you about four hours to assemble it once you're done sanding and oiling" is WRONG WRONG WRONG. Try four DAYS. I'm pretty sure if it took mere hours for them, it was because (as they conveniently forgot) they had a team of people working on the loom all at once. Assembly line. Yeah.

Was I frustrated at times? You bet.

Do I feel like I got run over by a Mac Truck because my muscles are so sore from sanding, oiling and rubbing a gazillion wooden parts? Yessss... ow.

Was I overcome with the fumes from the mineral spirit/oil solution? ...huh? What? You say sumthin', man?... (Apparently that's an affirmative).

Were there times when I thought perhaps I was in over my head? Sure.

Did I ever think of giving up? Not on your life!!!

Am I prouder than heck of myself for my triumph? You bet!

* Dummy here finally figured out why so many photos have an odd shadow in them. It's because dummy here got her fingers in the way of the flash! AUUGGGHHH!!!

Labels: FOs, loom

posted by Jeanne @ 11:38 PM