After my first weaving project, where I ended up warping the loom again by tossing the warp over the bannister and weighting the warp with water bottles, I needed a new weighting option after moving the loom to the lower level of the house before the second project.

After doing some searching online, I found people using something called a warping trapeze. Brilliant.

However, I wanted my warping trapeze design to be a little different. I’m not going to walk through how to actually build a warping trapeze but I’m showing several pictures of how we build mine and why we chose some of the design features.

A Gallery of Pictures of My Warping Trapeze

	This is most of the lumber and hardware. This doesn’t include upgrades we made to the trapeze later.
	Constructing: Adding one of the bottom cross-pieces.
	Constructing: adding the other cross-piece.
	The top of the vertical pieces is saw-horse hardware.
	Just another picture of the saw-horse hardware.
	On the very top of the frame are these plastic dipped hooks for storing the adjustable top bar (you’ll see later).
	The saw-horse hardware is only attached to the top board on one side so I can fold it up and set it aside when not in use.
	This is the nearly finished warping trapeze. The top bar is in its storage position.
	This shows the top bar in its top-most position. It sits in another kind of plastic-dipped hook (see next picture).
	This is the hook for when I’m winding warp. This is the top position of the top bar. When I start getting to the end of my warp, I can lift the bar off these hooks and move it down to the next position.
	This is the second position.
	These hooks are what plumbers use to hang pipe and are what I use for the adjustment positions. They just screw right into the boards (screws were included with the hooks).
	And, this is the third position. Note: I plan to add one more position that aligns with the front beam of the loom.
	The bottom bar is fixed.
	Caps on the ends of the adjustable top bar. This is handy if, while I’m moving the warp down to the next set of hooks and I tip the bar a little, the warp won’t slide off the end. And, it looks more finished.  🙂
	Warp goes under the bottom bar and up over the top bar. Here the warp is un-weighted.
	At this point, I start weighting sections of the warp. With this first time using the warping trapeze, I used water bottles for my weights.
	All the warp is now weighted. All the weight is even across the entire warp. Beautiful!
	As I wind the warp onto the warp beam, the weights move up. When they get close to that top bar, I move the weights back to the floor. This continues until I run out of warp.
	When my weights are at the end of the warp, I now adjust by moving that top bar down to the next set of hooks and continue winding.
	And again down to the next bar.
	The next step is to pull the weights out from under the bottom bar and put over the bar at its lowest position. It’s here that I need another set of adjustment hooks that are even with the front beam because the warp should be horizontal here.
	I move the trapeze closer to the loom to get as much work out of the trapeze as possible.
	When I can’t use the trapeze any more, the weights just hang off the front beam and I finish winding until the weights are up to the front beam.
	When I used the trapeze for the second time, I changed things a little. I bought weights instead of keeping water bottles on hand.
	These are S-hooks and fishing weights. These weights come in all sorts of sizes. I bought 4-ounce weights.
	This is the latest improvement to the warping trapeze. It now doubles as a warping frame! My other frame does 9 yards. With all the pegs in, this will do 20 yards.
	The board with the pegs for the cross is removable. The pegs are glued in to this board.
	All the other pegs are removable. That way, I can set up my configuration to suit the warp length I want to measure.
	Picture of the board with the pegs for the cross.