My 72 needle cylinder was feeling sluggish – a little stiffer on the knit that what it should be. I hadn’t cleaned it for several months, so for a nice way to spend a -18 degree Saturday I took it out of the Verdun 47, and gave both a good clean up.
Egad.
No wonder the knit was getting stiff – there was barely enough room left in the slots for the needles to complete their stitches. (The cylinder is upside down in the first pic.)
Ick.
That’s a lot of wool-cucky.
For some odd reason I haven ‘t tossed it out yet. I keep thinking there must be a good use for this cylinder-crud felt…
Wow, that was pretty crusty. I’d use the felt as fire-starter, you might get a BTU out of it, especially at -18C. Do you think you should make a note to make this cleaning a quarterly event? Just sayin’…
Stay warm and keep cranking, can’t wait to see more socks.
It is somehow very satisfying to pick out the clogged gunk out of something.
Yeah – its how I know I’m part of the ‘missing link’ – an ongoing urge to pick and groom.
The only downside of scraping all the crud out – I find my tension feels a bit ‘off’ on a clean machine – and by off, I mean a little tighter. Enough that I end up backing off my usual setting for a few dozen pairs. I think it might have to do with the needles going down further into the clean slots once I remove the bits of felt – but that’s only a guess – it could just as easily all be in my head!
That’s so funny, about the compacted gunk. Based on your description, it sounds like you would make a great dental hygienist (cleaning and scraping nooks and crevices in teeth until squeaky clean).
Thanks for this superb website. I am thinking of purchasing a Legare CSM but I have no prior experience with CSM or even regular knitting. Is a manual available for the 400 and/or 47 (I can read French).
Bonjour et merci.