A Few Words on Machine Maintenance

While we're all getting ourselves organized to start the KAL, we thought a word or two about machine maintenance might be timely.  My machine has been unused for longer than I care to admit, so I spent quite a bit of time this summer doing a very thorough cleaning and maintenance, including replacing the sponges in the sponge bars.

Lynne has written up an excellent piece on cleaning your machine - regular and deep cleaning - and I followed it closely when doing my own machine.  See the next blog post for the entire write up.

For the sponge replacement, I followed very closely the detailed directions at Knittsings.  Part 1 can be found here:  http://knittsings.com/how-to-make-a-knitting-machine-needle-retainer-sponge-bar-part-1-remove-the-old-and-clean-for-new/    There were a few things I did differently - for example, I adhered the fabric to the foam first and THEN cut the strips.  The minimum cut on the foam was 0.25 metres, so you can see I have enough for quite a few more sponge bars if anyone is in need!

I also wish that I had left the fabric longer at the two ends to serve as a built-in tab to either try to tuck under the clip or tape to the end.  You can see in the picture below that the sponge should be tapered down and secured at the end.  Had I left extra fabric that would have been quite a bit easier.  I realize now that this photo would have been more helpful had it been a close up - I'm sure you are not interested in what is on my kitchen counter.  Hopefully my photography skills, as well as my machine knitting skills, will improve as we go along!

I found another website that also has an excellent video on removing and replacing the sponge in your sponge bar, here:  http://spongebar.com/replacesponge/  This site also sells the replacement sponges ready-made.

It's so important to keep our machines in good working order.  What better time to do a thorough cleaning just before the start of a new project!

Nancy