Posted by annonemoose on Friday, 21 January 2005, at 8:24 a.m.:
In Reply to: Re: Choosing a new loom posted by Donna on Friday, 14 January 2005, at 10:35 a.m.:
I've been weaving for many years and any loom manufacturer can occasionally turn out a lemon. I have an AVL that I love dearly and many of my friends have AVLs (especially the home loom which is a particularly good model) and they love them dearly.
The thing about AVL's is they can take a bit more adjusting and attention than a simple loom but then they provide you with more technical benefits such as automatic cloth advance, which if you are a production weaver is a real boon! No more getting up to ratchet a beam forward it takes up automatically! But yes it requires adjusting to get the take up PPI that you wish for.
Glimakra and Schacht and LeClerc and Toika and Macomber and many other manufacturers make excellent looms to choose from. However if you are a production weaver I highly recommend the AVL's they are a good loom, but require a dedicated, technically competent weaver.
The best advice anyone can give you is to go weave on many different types of looms before you finally choose. So definitely check out the AVL (if you call AVL they can put you in touch with someone by you who will show you their loom and often let you weave a bit on it).
hth,
-Moosie