Making a Small Hand Loom

photo above: My 3D Bioplastic loom was designed and built in August 2021.

Link to how to Weave on Small Hand Looms

On this page I show how I hade an 8" x 12" Wooden Loom and also a 5 1/4" x 9 1/2" Hand-held Plastic Loom, and I love em!

Handmade small loom made from Mahogany, with handmade tapestry beater and long hickory needles. Hand Tung oiled finishes.

First a couple examples of small projects made on the looms I made; you can use the link above to see how I made projects on these looms, enjoy!

Hand woven wool coasters from my mini loom.

Native American inspired design, wool coaster, made on my mini-loom.

First I will show the little wooden loom, and below that I show the 3D printed loom including CAD files.

How to Make a Small Wooden Loom

...or I should say, here is ONE way of hundreds, that one can make a small loom. This loom is 8" x 12" and has 8 or 16 EPI (Ends per Inch.... means there will be 8 warp yarns per inch), depending on how you install the warp yarn. There are so many interesting designs even for simple hand looms. I decided to build a square frame hand-loom which will have pins on the top and bottom of the frame for attaching the warp. I made this loom from Mahogany, but you could use any wood you want.

First I cut TWO pieces of Mahogany 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 8". Next I cut two pieces 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 12". I cut a long curve into the vertical frame rails, just for some style.

Then I used a router to round over any exposed edges or corners.

Next I glued the corners together with Titebond III wood glue, and clamped them while the glue dried.

After the glue dried , I unclamped the loom, and drilled two 1/4" holes in each corner of the frame as shown.

Then I cut four 1/4" dowels which I will pound and glue into those holes for a pinned connection.

Dowels glued in place.

Next I sanded everything smooth. I found some square edges exposed that I missed with the router, so I sanded/filed those round at this point.

I drilled and counter-sunk 4 holes in the vertical rails, in each corner. I'm not sure what I will use these for, but I wanted there to be some tie-down points on the loom. Also, I laid out my 8 ends-per-inch spacing in pencil.

Then I used an awl to create a point for drilling holes.

After marking out the holes every 1/8th of an inch, it became clear the the dowels would be too close together to be workable. For this reason, I offset every other hole as shown in this photo.

Then I got to drilling a whole bunch of holes!! I drilled them at an angle so that the warp yarns will not be able to slip off. The green tape on the drill bit is just so I know how far to drill in the hole. I drilled the holes 1/2" deep.

Here are all the holes drilled.

I then cut a bunch of wooden pins and glued them into the frame. These are bamboo and are about 3/32" dia. One could also use little nails instead of wooden pins. I wanted an all-natural looking little loom so I used wooden pins.

I made a little spot at the top of the loom where I could paint a couple little flowers.

Ready to start a project!

Making a Small 3D Printed Hand Loom:

Here is my very simple yet study, basic loom. I string up the warp and then use a long needle to weave the weft across the warp strings. I 3D Printed this loom in PLA which is a "plastic" made of corn, sugar cane waste and which can be commercially composted.

3D printed loom, 5 1/4" x 9 1/2" (133mm x 240mm), along with needle and beater.

You could buy a little loom such as this, or make one out of wood or cardboard. I designed mine on Fusion 360 and 3D printed it. This 3D printed loom was printed in PLA on my Prusa i3 MK3S with 50% infill. There are 5 EPI, or "ends-per-inch" on this loom; which indicates the spacing of the notches, which corroesponds to how many warp strands you will have per inch. The little green bars raise the warp up above the loom-frame which makes it easier to weave the weft through the warp in my opinion.

Here are the CAD files (.stl) if you want to print this loom, you will likely need to scale these in your CAD to achieve outer dimensions of 5.25" x 9.5" on the main frame of the loom:

stl mini_loom_frame_v1.stl

stl mini_loom_riser_bar_v1.stl

stl mini_loom_beater_v1.stl

stl mini_loom_needle_v1.stl

Wool yarn warp tied to the loom.