Shafts sticking on Megado Loom
Rebecca Logan had issues with shafts sticking / hanging up on her 130cm Megado. Here is how she fixed it.
I got my 130cm Louët Megado in April of 2025. When weaving I was having maybe 33% of my picks go bad due to an extra shaft getting hung up rather than returning to the base position. That meant that that extra shaft was lifted in the next pick, when it should not have been. That resulted in so many bad picks that I stopped using the loom for four months.
After reaching out for help to the Megado users group on Facebook I received advice to take the Texsolv out from the slots at both ends of the top of each interior shaft, and slide that Texsolv in between the shafts. That helped a lot, reducing the hang-ups to maybe 10% of the picks I was weaving.
Then today I finally figured out how to fix the problem I was having with the remaining shafts that were still getting hung up on top of each other.
The problem: It turned out that the issue was slightly warped or twisted shafts, on the bottom at this point. These were not large warps in the wood, they were subtle and didn't hang up every time, but did hang up often enough that weaving became problematic. I think it has to do with the loom being made in The Netherlands, near the sea, and now residing on the very dry Canadian Prairies. Even with the addition of a humidifier to my household I have had some of the shafts just kind of twist. They twisted enough that when they came back down after being lifted they hung up on top of an adjacent shaft, or an adjacent shaft that had been lifted plunked itself on top of the twisted shaft and wouldn't go all the way down.
The trouble shooting process: I spent a few hours weaving at a slower pace, with a floor lamp aimed at the tops of the shafts so that I could see every time a shaft got hung up. Then I put a numbered sticker on the shaft to identify it. After weaving like this for a couple of hours, I had applied stickers to all of the shafts that were getting hung up. I noticed that they came in pairs, such as shafts 7 and 8, 11 and 12, 14 and 15, 19 and 20. Then one by one I lifted those shafts and let them release until one of the pair got hung up again.
Then came the hunt: Where was the shaft hanging up? Seeing as I had fixed the problem on the top, this time the hang ups were all on the bottom. All were hanging up at one end or the other, non in the middle. It was easy enough to see where they were getting hung up, as they were literally sitting on top of the adjacent shaft. That meant either the shaft sitting on top was slightly warped and over hanging the next shaft, or the shaft below it was twisted and under hanging the one on top.
The solution: I took the Texsolv that ran down through the slot at the end of the shaft that was hung up, and removed it from the slot. I then pushed that Texsolv so that it ran between the two shafts that were involved in the hang up. There was now a physical barrier preventing future hang ups from happening. The Texsolv running between the two shafts helped to guide both shafts down smoothly.
It should be noted that I did not do this on shafts 1 or 32, as they need the support of the Texsolv to stop them from shifting about. They are not constricted by surrounding shafts.
I have since woven over 1000 picks with no further hang ups! I want to thank Jean Halford-Thompson for the original advice via Facebook about moving the Texsolv out of the slots at both ends of the top shaft and putting it in between the shafts. That was the key to fixing my entire issue.
The reason I'm writing this is to help anybody else from drier climates who is dealing with shaft hang ups due to their shafts warping when the loom underwent a major change in humidity.