The loom looks a lot like your regular inkle loom except it has two sides. The sides are made by cutting a cheap particle board shelf into two symmetrical parts. A hardwood board can also be used, but that kind of negates the part about being inexpensive.

Do NOT use a soft wood like pine, the sides will just crack and break.

A happy side-effect of the design is that the loom is amazingly sturdy. You can put more tension on this loom than any warp thread can withstand(at least so far).

A brief history/justification of the loom design.

Construction Make the initial cut dividing the board into two symmetrical pieces(heavy line above). Mark drill holes on one side, clamp both sides together and drill through both, to keep the holes aligned. Use a coping or scroll saw to cut out the slots for the tensioning dowel. The tensioning slots should be at least 12 inches long. If you feel the loom is too heavy, cut out the sides as shown above. Use a mitre box to get square ends when cutting dowels to identical lengths. Predrill holes in dowels to avoid splitting, a drill press is best for this. Use locking pliers clamped at the end of the bolt threads to put hanger bolts into both ends of each dowel. Cut the 1x2 into knob sized lengths(1 3/4" to 3" or so), drill centers for t-nuts. Sand, paint, decorate sides and knobs as you will. Assemble the loom one side at a time following the exploded diagram below.

You now have a two-sided loom, both sides of which are removable. This lets you warp up the loom with only one side of the frame on, allowing easier access to the extra warping pegs. Then, before you put tension on the warp, just drop the other side of the frame on and fasten it down. One sided makes it easy to warp, the other side makes it sturdy.

Materials	Costs
Board, 12"x2'6" or more. I do not recommend pine, particle board shelving works well.	less than $2
Dowels, at least 1" wide, 3' gives 6 - 6" dowels, 4' gives 6 - 8" dowels	less than $1
Hanger bolts(lag on 1 end, bolt on other), 2 per dowel. I use 1/4"-20 2 1/2" long	2 per dowel@less than $0.25/each
T-nuts, 3 prong, same threading as hanger bolts, i.e. 1/4"-20	2 per dowel@less than $0.25/each
1x2, 3' or longer, enough for 2 knobs per dowel.	less than $1
Total	less than $10

Equipment

Coping saw/scroll saw/jig saw

Mitre box and saw

Locking pliers

Drill (drill press is better)

Drill bit slightly smaller than outer diameter of lag threads for pre-drilling dowels

Drill bit the same size as the barrel insert of the t-nut, use this bit for t-nut holes, dowel holes in frames and for the ends of the tensioning slots

People have asked questions about the dowels and warping, so ...

	Dowels required for minimal structural and weaving support.
	For inkle weaving soft heddle support.

Additional dowels along the diagonal and back uprights allow you to increase the length of your weaving. If you count the inkle heddle support dowel then the diagonal will need to have one more dowel than the right upright column.

Warping for inkle weaving alternates between the long movable warps (solid line) and the 'bent' warps fixed in place with the soft heddles (dashed line). Inkle weaving involves grabbing the movable warp threads (solid line) and either pulling up or pushing down to create a shed with the fixed warp threads (dashed line).

Be careful adding dowels for additional length while inkle weaving. The additional dowels on the diagonal need to stay down out of the way of those movable warp threads (solid line).

Most of the people I've made looms for have ended up preferring them to be 2 1/2 feet long. Any longer and they have trouble getting it into and out of cars and doors. However, since particle board shelving usually comes in 4 foot lengths, what do you do with the other 1 1/2 feet of board? If you cut L's like in the drawing above plus 3 dowels gives you a VERY portable mini loom that has been deemed excellent for cardweaving classes (the L does NOT work for inkle weaving). Since there's no back and forth warping you can cut costs by using lag bolts to permanently fix the two non-tensioning dowels in place instead of the hanger bolts and t-nut knobs.

	An inexpensive source of cardweaving cards is playing cards. Buy the widest you can find. Then cut them down to square. Yes, they will wear out faster than commercially made cardweaving cards, but they are a very small fraction of the cost.
	Then draw the X to find the center, use a compass to scribe a circle. Use a standard paper punch to make the 4 holes on the X but inside the circle. If the holes are outside the circle then the corners will catch threads as they are turned. Make just one as a pattern and then lay it on top of each successive card and punch through the same holes.

Questions or problems email to: HL Toli the Curious tmyers2@unl.edu This page accessed times.