# The great cardboard shuttle experiment



## wordancer (May 4, 2011)

I need to weave two 4" x 40" sections for the Jacob rug. The last time I wove such a small width on my 16" RHL, I ended up using yarn butterflies as it felt awkward using the regular shuttles. OK , lets get creative about this and use what is available. In my old world (before retirement) I would have just hopped online and ordered smaller shuttles.

An empty cardboard cereal box, lets try that. Measure, drew and cut out pieces and glue them together. Did you know that the cardboard cereal boxes have gotten flimsy? Ended up using three layers for each shuttle, with Titebond 5003 II Premium Wood Glue. This took two episodes of The Games of Thrones, I was working slowly being distracted by the show.

Weigh down overnight with the _Principles of Knitting_ book, after making sure there was no glue oozing between the edges. Trim & sand. 

BTW, an nail file makes a good cardboard sander to smooth the edges.

The shuttles seem fairly strong...I'll come back and let you know how they hold up.


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## Susan from NC (Jan 23, 2013)

Great ingenuity! If they don't hold up long enough...tada...eat more cereal! Thanks for showing it to us and keep us posted.


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## RenegadeJane (Dec 4, 2015)

Great idea! I need to make some


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## hilarymercer51 (9 mo ago)

Ingenious!


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## spins2knit (Jul 29, 2013)

Great idea! Use what you have at hand!


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## seamer45 (Jan 18, 2011)

wordancer said:


> I need to weave two 4" x 40" sections for the Jacob rug. The last time I wove such a small width on my 16" RHL, I ended up using yarn butterflies as it felt awkward using the regular shuttles. OK , lets get creative about this and use what is available. In my old world (before retirement) I would have just hopped online and ordered smaller shuttles.
> 
> An empty cardboard cereal box, lets try that. Measure, drew and cut out pieces and glue them together. Did you know that the cardboard cereal boxes have gotten flimsy? Ended up using three layers for each shuttle, with Titebond 5003 II Premium Wood Glue. This took two episodes of The Games of Thrones, I was working slowly being distracted by the show.
> 
> ...


Great idea. I also weave, and on my knitting stuff I have yarn butterflies that are 4” long, and old. I have lots in a variety of sizes so I used one doe weaving I trimmed them so the yarn would come out more easily and it works great. I still have plenty of that size for knitting


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## gardenpoet (Jun 24, 2016)

In early 2020 when we were all relegated to homelife, I made a loom out of old stretcher bars from a painting canvas, and made my shuttles from flattened paper towel cores, inserted extra cardboard layers, cut the ends concave and then wrapped it all with blue painter's tape to hold it together. Worked really well.


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