You can see an old documentary, on YouTube as "Åkleveving på oppstadgogn (stumfilm)" on the Norsk Folkemuseum channel, about a warp-weighted loom here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a19lGJGOZWY. It is a silent film. It is not in English and the only text I recognized was the word krokbragd, which is a weave structure, and the name Marta Hoffmann, a weaver who wrote a book called The warp-weighted loom; studies in the history and technology of an ancient implement. Some of the book's images are photos taken when the documentary was filmed, and the book has an account of the steps the weavers took. A viewer took the text from the film, typed the text into Google Translate, and posted the results in the comments.
If you are not familiar with warp-weighted looms, its design goes back to antiquity. A warp is the arrangement of threads running lengthwise on the loom and in this case the warp runs vertically, not horizontally like it does on a modern floor loom, a table loom or an ancient ground loom. There are weights that put tension on the warp and hold it in position.
The book of Proverbs in the Bible describes an ideal woman who spins and weaves. The author states that "her arms are strong for her tasks" (Pr 31:17b NIV). I was interested to see in this film how physically demanding it was for the two women to set up a warp-weighted loom and weave with it. I think that the author of Proverbs thought of the ideal woman as using a warp-weighted loom because he states that she makes coverings for her bed. A warp-weighted loom is very suitable for making a bed covering because it is wide enough to make a piece without having to seam two widths together or having to use the double weave technique as you would on a floor loom. Hoffmann gives widths of beams of various historical looms and most are at least 200 cm (78.75 inches). This is the width of the loom, not the width which you can weave. The loom's design appears to lend itself to two weavers passing the weft bobbin (ud'do) through the shed across the full width of the warp and beating it into place in sections with the sword. A handweaver on a floor loom is naturally limited in how far she can throw the shuttle that holds the weft. Also, in my experience, the wider the warp on a floor loom, the more difficult it is to beat the cloth and thus the looser the weave.
Marta Hoffmann's book is out of print and expensive to buy used. Somewhat less expensive but still pricey is a book by Hildur Hákonardóttir, Elizabeth Johnston, and Marta Klove Juuhl, called Oppstadveven. The English title is The Warp-weighted Loom. As I write this, the Vesterheim museum store is taking pre-orders for the new printing.
You can see a preview of some pages of Oppstadveven on the website of the publisher, Skald. Page 141 is interesting because it shows how to use a specialized combination of warping board and rigid heddle loom to weave a narrow strip with extra-long weft threads coming off the side. These threads become the warp of the piece on the warp-weighted loom. Hoffmann's book shows this as well, calling it a warping frame.
Page 144 of the preview has a schematic for building a warp-weighted loom. Unfortunately the resolution of the image on my screen is not good enough for me to be able to read the measurements, even using the zoom feature. The schematic is shown on graph paper but I doubt even a really determined person could take the fuzzy image and work out the dimensions by assuming the beam is 200 cm. (Hoffman gives the crotched supports for the heddle as projecting 30 cm [12 inches] from the uprights and a sword as 90 cm [35.4 inches] long.) Page 145 has a tantalizing note that the Osterøy museum has a booklet for sale called Oppstadveven by Anna Østerbø Kåstad with the schematic. The museum is part of Museumssenteret i Hordaland. I didn't see the booklet on their museum store pages.
Vesterheim has a couple of warp-weighted loom classes for 2025. One is for varafell, which I think looks amazing. It is a traditional technique that produces a cloak that looks like a shaggy sheepskin. The class' instructor is Marta Klove Juuhl. She is in this video about varafell, "Frå hand til hand - tekstil kulturarv på Osterøy Museum" on the Museumssenteret i Hordaland channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlVJpTNsT0k.
There are some other videos about varafell on YouTube if you search for them. It seems that another name for varafell is röggvarfeldur. Some of the videos show how to use a wool comb to process the double-coated wool. Double-coated means that the wool has both soft short fibres and long hairy outer fibres. According to the videos, the undercoat is spun for the weft, some of the outer coat is spun for the warp, and the rest of the outer coat is interlocked as it is into the weft. I believe the wool is spun in the grease; that is, unwashed.
A weaver in one of the varafell videos wrote in the video description that she averaged 4 cm (about 1.5 inches) of cloth an hour. A lot of fibre artists wouldn't touch this, deeming the process inefficient. But I expect you have to judge varafell on the product rather than the process. If you compare a varafell cloak to a fulled handwoven twill coat, the former sounds more functional, as it is described as being water resistant, and it sounds durable. And one size would fit all, I imagine. How many varafell cloaks would you have to weave for yourself and your family in your lifetime, compared to coats.
This topic has left me with so many questions. What else can you weave with a warp-weighted loom, and how. How many fleeces go into a varafell cloak, and is the sheep breed supposed to be spelsau. Vesterheim's course description says one or two pelts are needed (and I really hope for the sheep's sake that what is meant is not pelts but fleeces), but I assume the warp and weft used in the class will be commercially spun and so the course materials would not be representative of the amount of materials needed for a handspun, handwoven cloak. What equipment do you use to spin the wool into warp and weft to weave a varafell cloak, with what technique, and at what gauge, angle of twist, and number of plies. If you were to have a warp-weighted loom, how would you keep it in place on the wall lacking an old house where you can add nails to the wall. Where do you get a warp-weighted loom and a warping frame to go with it. This, especially. I guess I need to reread Hoffmann's book.