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Tuesday, August 2, 2022

The Rube Goldberg fix

I hope many of us remember Rube Goldberg, the sculptor, engineer, author, inventor, and most of all (for me) the cartoonist. At my grandparent's home on Sundays, the comics of the Cleveland papers far exceeded those of my hometown Akron papers. One of the best always was Rube Goldberg and his elaborate methods to achieve a common end.


You may recall that oversight on the part of both participants in the last warping of my loom left the weaver (me) with a problem to resolve when encountered, namely two threads missing in the warp.


There are two threads, exiting the coffee can, crossing the breast beam and the heavy cotton apron. Then they go...


through the tension box that otherwise is used on the back beam to guide thread into the bouts. Ignore the prescription bottles, they are solving a different problem.


And the two threads come up and join the threads of the bout being woven into very decent towels on this convoluted warp.


There they are, just two more threads in the warp, only special by how they arrived.


This time I've weaving khaki, the color of my father's army uniforms. They may be finished for the show on Saturday. Or not.

I used the tension box solely to put tension on those two threads. It turns out the coffee can and the trip over the breast beam and especially the cotton apron provide enough tension; I could have eliminated the tension box all together. Or not. 


26 comments:

  1. I live this inventive way of solving the problem! Rube would be proud.

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  2. Love not live. Dodgy eyesight.

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  3. Hari Om
    Nothing cartoon about this problem solving! YAM xx

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  4. Love the prescription bottles. This entire lash up is genius.

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  5. This is an incredibly creative solution to the problem. Very clever!

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  6. Utterly amazing... You are a winner!!

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  7. You have an engineering mind. I am a little envious. Okay, a lot. I could never figure out anything like that.

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  8. It's such a complicated procedure and thanks for sharing with us all. Genius. I've done most stuff with yarn and fabric but never weaving. I have spun and silk screened etc, list as long as my arm. but always in awe of how majestic a loom is and it seriously never looks like it could produce such loveliness.
    XO
    WWW

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  9. I didn't understand everything, but you are obviously very creative.

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  10. Ingenious!!
    I didn't know his name, but I remember those cartoons.

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  11. You need engineering skills and ingenuity to operate this loom!

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  12. Great solution for a wonderful result!

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  13. You are very creative. Towels AND problem solving. How long have you been a weaver?

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  14. You are as ingenious as you are skillful.

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  15. I am convinced that you can fix anything...absolutely anything! The world desperately needs more people just like you Joanne.

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  16. Seems we're dealing with basically the same problem, how to work around something that isn't working.

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  17. Ingenious! I loved Rube Goldberg.

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  18. I am not familiar with the comic. Your weaving looks beautiful and complicated. Sounds like you're a bit of repair person as well.
    Sandy's Space

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  19. Well done! I love the parallel between Goldberg's and your probem-solving :)

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  20. I've seen Rube Goldberg work, just never attached a name to it.

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