New old loom for weaving tartan

[NHhighlander]

Very grateful to you, Steve. You hit several very important points

If there is one suggestion I could make it would be to search out your local spinners and weavers guild.
In my local area the weavers have been so generous with their time and knowledge that I cannot imagine taking a project like yours to full fruition.

We do have a sweet local community of spinners, weavers, felters, knitters and all things sheep and wool, around a local business, Eagles' Aerie. I do enjoy the get-togethers, friendly attitude, as you said, everybody willing to share. However... As far as I know there is no flying shuttle in the lot, not even clear if anyone actually has been weaving in the last few years, except me, did a little bit of inkle work, which made me the local pro... The visit of an expert weaver has been announced as an event to come, precisely.

You are going to need to be able to produce Twill weave fabric of between 10 and 16 oz per linear yard. Not hard, but not the same as the fabric for shirts, pants and/or other clothing.

if my spreadsheet makes sense, and the linear yard is 60 inches wide, then it looks like I'm going for 22 oz. Heavy. Back in the mountains where I come from, we like it heavy. Apparently heavy is a total unobtanium in this day and age. Yay!

Weaving a Tartan is not hard once you have a loom and have practice weaving some cloth. But the actual operation of a loom is just one small component of the entire process. It's not the loom itself that makes the cloth, it is the hands and muscle memory of the process along with all the other factors.

Ohhh! this is a big deal raw nerve you're hitting, healing now...
Thank you, I do appreciate people who help me stay honest and focused. Even if my local guild is not much help, you are.
This muscle memory thing is the one reason, the one fear i had, that caused me stop my project for nearly a year.

First, I agree 120% with you regarding the importance of muscle memory. Without it, them squares, they ain't. I don't have that kind of skill (I even developed a robot to do calligraphy in my stead), nor have much intention in trying to develop it, as I know my limits. Yet I'm moving ahead now, because I figured out a way to cheat. That's the automated positive take-up. Took me a couple months to perfect it, until last week. We'll see...

And also, or instead?, the concept of pushing the beater, instead of pulling, then the beater's weight presses each pick exactly the same amount, gravity. Doing that might even make that automated cheat become unnecessary. This video of Marion Campbell shook my fears away, gave much needed confidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly-lFONTuGk We'll see...

Sourcing the warp and weft yarns is going to be one of the first hurdles. Are you going to spin the yarn yourself? Dye it yourself? Or find and purchase yarn from a commercial source? Do you want modern yarns of modern composition spun on commercial machines or do you have a source for home spun of the composition, weight, and tensile strength to warp your loom?

Didn't I say you were good?
Yes, this was a bit of a snag. Obviously, I wanted homespun, natural dye. Sanity prevailed, and life is good after I found a USA source for Canadian Maurice Brassard wool, Ability Weavers, https://abilityweavers.com/. Fantastic service, very reasonable prices, ready to special order anything. I'm going with the Blue Mountain 2/8, 2,100 yd per lb.
25 EPI, which should give me a bit over 4 setts on the 25 inches at 1/4 count. Or so i hope...

Just one of the many looms in my house.
...
Heddles are Texsolv as I chose not to hand-tie a couple thousand heddles.

LOL.
Eventually, to take this loom of mine places (like to Games), I'll tie those heddles, because of historical reenactment reasons.
I did 60 or so, but then sanity prevailing, will install wire ones for now, I get all confused with Texsolv.

Yes a flying shuttle would be nice but adds over 6 feet to the width of the loom, hence to the size of room required.

6 feet? Hmm. Methinks should be much less than that, but, we'll see how mine works before I try to convince you to adopt this.

...
If you only want to produce samples perhaps a tabletop loom would suit you.

This 8 shaft Jack Loom is perfect for samples or prototyping,

Yes, i did a bit of prototyping on a tabletop 4-shaft. I totally agree with going in stages, making errors often and early with small projects, learning on the cheap. That looms looks like a real cutie. I recently built myself a 4-shaft with PVC, warped it, but then decided to just get going with the big project. It still was a useful experience (meaning, there was a major issue, that got solved), because of the way that I set the counterbalance (report on the third day, tomorrow), the warping is non-conventional.

Hey, really really grateful. "I wishfully want to think that I know what I'm doing (while, really, I have no actual idea)," but even that is just right now, after making many mistakes, with as much humility as possible, and I really do appreciate those who know, that can look over my shoulders and point to possible issues. That the ones you mention I happened to be aware of, yet not solved, doesn't mean that I'm not overlooking something else essential... And, precisely, my solutions aren't any good until the pudding actually gels... As he said, stay thirsty, my friends.