Wire weaving loom

About the sound

The wire weaving loom heard here was made in 1949. It was one of the first built by the company Emil Jäger from Hamm. Up until 1995 the wire weaving loom “H49” was in use at the company Newa in Mende and produced fine stainless steel fabric.
Today the wire weaving loom is an exhibit of the LWL-Industrial Museum Bocholt Textile Factory. It is used for presentations.
Before it is possible to hear the rhythmical sound of the wire weaving loom in operation, up to 40.000 wires – depending on the type of weave – have to be threaded by hand through the heddles of the shaft and then through the beater. For the process of weaving, the weft wire is thrown sideways through the warp wire shed. The warp and weft wires interweave alternately. The loom is arranged with two shafts for weaving a simple twill wire fabric. It is possible to use up to 4 shafts. The shafts are controlled by an eccentric drive (inside treading). An eccentric drive can be understood in mechanical terms as a disc fixed to a rotating axle with an offset center.
A cops winder is mounted on the front of the loom to the right. It operates alongside the weaving process and is powered by the loom's own drive.
The main sounds are the up and down motions of the “shafts”, the “shuttles” moving back and forth and the strike of the “beater”.


Sound recordist: Konrad Gutkowski / Maike Buckemüller
Video recordist: Konrad Gutkowski / Maike Buckemüller
Photographer: Konrad Gutkowski / Maike Buckemüller