Because the warping process went rather badly on my passion blanket with the old raddle I was using I decided to make a new one.

In my search for tips about a DIY raddle I found this video by curmudgeon66 on YouTube. He’s made a custom fit raddle for his Louet Spring. I don’t need to do anything elaborate on the Jane, because there is a ‘roof’ right behind the built in raddle on which you can just rest any raddle that is the right width, but what I really liked about his version is the use of cotter pins. You can take them out and put them in only as wide as needed. I figured if you make sure the holes are smooth enough you can also decide to have wider or narrower sections by skipping holes.

I picked up a wood beam and the cotter pins last Monday. I had them cut two lengths in the shop, 74 and 78cm. The latter fits exactly between the beater arms, and I decided to go for that one, which gives me more space to put clamps on without them getting in the way of the warp, and I don’t have to think about centering it because it fits exactly. When I was about to get started I remembered that I have a Dremel Drill Press sitting somewhere which was perfect for this project.

I spaced the holes 1 cm apart. I started with a few tests on ‘leftover’ wood before starting on the real thing. The drill bit that was supposedly the same diameter (1/8”) as the cotter pins made a hole that was too loose. I went down one size in my Dremel drill bit set (7/64”), and this gave me a hole where the cotter pins would fit in snuggly, so you’d need some force to get them out. I prefer this, this way no pins will come out accidentally.

In addition to the demo in the video I found that you can put a thin rod through the cotter pin holes to keep the yarn from jumping out (although it’s big jump!). I’ve used a wire from a blocking kit I’ve had sitting around. Stiff enough to go straight and flexible enough to guide through where the cotter pins don’t line up exactly. That the cotter pins are not exactly aligned is due to a few factors, they’re not all the exact same length, I sometimes has issues with keeping the drill bit in at the same length so not all the holes are exactly the same depth, and the drill would jump off position a little sometimes, so the holes are not perfectly in one line.

But all in all they are aligned enough to get the wire through, and I am very satisfied with how this turned out.

I sanded the wood after drilling the holes with sandpaper ranging in grit size from 150 to 600. I also applied some wax balm. The knot that is on the edge on one side I had some cracks that I filled with wood glue.