Changing to a Sliding Beater

Question: I have the David 70 loom with the ‘old’ beater and have read your positive comments about the new beater, however, I am still unclear as to specific advantages of the new one, other than the shuttle race. Any additional comments you have will be helpful as I consider the cost. I have made several rugs, including weft-faced, and found the loom up to the task. By the way, I am probably one of very few who continues to warp front to back. I tried using the raddle, following your video which came with the loom and did not like it…sorry, just one of those things,…but one of these days I’ll give BTF a try again.

If you love your old beater and have no problems with shuttles diving, then you should just stick with the overhead beater. It sounds like you have learned to adapt your technique to suit the loom, which is wonderful. The main reason we switched the beater is that many weavers, who were used to working on a Jack Loom with a regular beater, didn’t like the fact that they had to hold the beater back to obtain their shed. There were complaints about shuttles diving because they didn’t have enough tension on the warp if they didn’t put the shuttle in the shed properly. If you aren’t having any problems then you don’t need to change anything. And….you can warp your loom any old way you want to :^) , the most important thing is that you’re happy with your system and your equipment.