Hi Rana
I will be very interested to read any replies you get as I am looking at it the other way round. I have a Jane table loom but wonder whether at some point in the future, it would be worth my while to get a floor loom! I am relatively new to weaving, and started with a rigid heddle loom. I still use it, but can certainly see how the Louet Jane dramatically expands my options for weaving. I assume that a floor loom would equally have clear advantages over the table loom, with the disadvantage of taking up more room though.

Hi Katherine - i edited this post because I misunderstood what you said. I thought you were debating between a floor loom and a table loom, but now I see you have a Jane and want to consider a floor loom.

I started out with a RH loom too, then jumped in with a massive (to me) 45 inch Leclerc Nilus 4 shaft loom that came up on a guild sale. I loved that thing, but it became apparent immediately that it had limitations - only 6 treadles, too much width, impossible to move around on my own, and not very ergonomic. Also, I found the jack loom mechanism noisy.

In the end I sold it, and replaced it with the Spring, which is absolutely lovely - AMAZING shed, much more compact, 12 shafts, quiet, 14 treadles (!!!), but changing the tie downs is cumbersome because you have two ties for each shaft. It is therefore harder to experiment with lifting plans, etc. I sometimes regret not having bought a David, but the extra treadles and shafts on my Spring are worth it.

Also, and this is very shallow, but the Spring is not as pretty a loom as my old Nilus, which looked like a beautiful piece of vintage furniture.

I think having a table loom will allow me to experiment more with lift plans, and to travel with my loom if needed. This is why I think a combo of Spring and Jane would be the right one for me.

Thanks so much Cheryl - This is exactly the kind of perspective I wanted to hear, and experimenting with lift plans is one of the reasons I want the table loom. I love my spring, but changing the tie downs is not my favorite thing to do.

I appreciated that you added the description of how you designed the hand towels and bath towels. Brilliant approach!

Hi Barbara
You mention the problem with distortion of the shafts on the Jane 70 cm loom if the warp is tightened past a certain point. That is an issue I came across myself and brought up in a thread with the title ‘Some downsides to the Louet Jane loom ‘ or something like that. At the time, I was trying to increase the tension to the point that the boat shuttle, of which I was a novice user, would stop diving through the lower threads of each shed. In the end I solved that problem by cobbling together a DIY shuttle race using lease sticks and some bulldog clips. I still think that the very light wooden frames of the shafts on the Jane are a weak point in its design, but have got around it and overall, I am very happy with the loom. Plenty of scope for learning the art of handweaving for a new weaver like myself. However, I do daydream about someday having a floor loom. Luckily there is going to be a demo of Louet looms here in Dublin, Ireland, next month, so I hope to get a chance to try out the Louet David that so many people seem to love. After that, it will just be a question of buying a bigger house to put it in!!

That’s a very neat solution. Maybe I’ll try out that option if I can find somewhere that sells that sort of plastic conduit. Thanks for posting the photo.

I think they are selling shuttle races for the the Jane looms now. I wonder if they work on the older models as well?

They are available but pretty expensive!

Katherine, I got the 6 foot length at Home Depot or other big box type hardware store. Then I used a few small bits of the double sided nano tape to affix it to the beater

OK thanks.