Cleaning a machine

Shaun, my husband, was on-call yesterday. He got a few calls out, most of them far out. He said it must be an out of town day.

So the last call he got was quite a ways out but he had his cat outside. Yes his cat. We have trained him to stay in the yard but from time to time if you do not keep a watch on him he will wander across the street. She, the neighbor, does not like cats.

So he asked me to "babysit" his Morty and I said I would. He has been stuck inside and he likes to sit in the sun. It was so boring that I had to find something to do and decided that this would be the time to start cleaning up that second Brother KX350 knitting machine.

It was getting toward evening but I just figured to I would remove the needle and the sponge strip. Then maybe there would be time to install the new sponge and I could get the needles cleaned.

So I removed all the needles and as they came out I realized that this was going to be a much bigger job then cleaning the first KX350. Not just a much bigger job but one that was going to take a lot of patience on my part.

You see as the needles came out I could see that some of them were coated with a sticky dark brown gunk. I didn't' realize till I took the sponge out just what this gunk was. It was the sponge strip. Now you know the sponge strip has to be really bad if the needles are coated with what is suppose to be sitting above them.

As I removed the needles I did find most to be in good working condition. That is to say they are not rusted, and only one had a bent latch. I sat that one aside. It is not good for the machine but that latch can be bent back into shape and the hubby is going to use some of these to make me a couple of those from the back latch up tools, you know the ones with the latch hook coming out sideways off a piece of wood to latch from the backside of the work.

The sponge was so bad that it completely fell to pieces when I pulled it out of the machine. You say your sponge has gone flat, but there was no way to even guess that this piece had been other then flat right from the beginning. As I pull the strip out the inside foam, what was left in there, just crumbled to pieces. The inside tabs that hold the strip in place were nasty, really, really nasty.

After the sponge was removed that machine bed was so dirty. Even the grooves where the needles sit was filled with junk. I thought at first I could use a cleaning brush from one of my other machines, (a little rectangle brush to clean fibers out of the grooves of the machine), to clean this machine. Nope that didn't work at all. That sponge from the sponge bar had been pulled by the needles right up in to those needle grooves. What a mess.

So I had to wash the plastic bed and figure out some way to clean those needle slots. You know it comes in handy being such a wide spread crafter. You have bits of this and that you can use. So pipe cleaners are something I always have hanging around. Bend these in the middle to have a firmer strand to hold on to, wet it so it collect the gunk, being sure to squeeze out the extra water (only want it damp), and go through each slot and clean the front section of the needle bed. What a messy bed this was.

Then it was install the sponge, that went fine. I learned from the last one. The needles were so gunked up that I had them setting over night in that denatured alcohol. Those I got out this evening, dried them well, check them over and set aside a total of eight with the first one that had a messed up latch. These others are ones with bits of rust on them. Like I said not a well kept machine at all.

So needles and sponge back in machine and I tested the carriage, but not before I cleaned it. Who ever had this machine must have thought when they said oil the carriage and machine that it meant dump the entire bottle of oil on them. The underside of this carriage had so much oil I had to wipe and wipe to get it off. I don't know what kind of oil they used, but it was sticky and dirt stuck to parts of it. So I had to move levers to get it all off.

A test of the carriage on the machine found that the right side N/H lever was not working right. I had to move it back and forth many times to get it loosened up. Now it seems to be working. Before it was as if it was on holding when in the N position.

Cleaned and all is not ever going to make this machine look perfect. There is a bit of yellowing on the first machines plastic bed, but this one has lots more. I managed to get some of it looking better, but there is not much that can be done for parts of it. I still have to test with yarn, but it is late and it has been a long day.

Today the hubby took down the old 18' round metal sided pool. All the bits that build up around it, weeds, plastic that was put down for it, and old things we went through that have died (toys) my sister and I trashed while the hubby started marking out the size of area for the new pool going in soon. When we checked the one pool over we knew that it was getting to old to be safe anymore. I wouldn't let my grands get in such an unsafe pool. So we will be putting up a 24' pool as soon as the ground is finished. We had the old pool inset into the ground but this new one has to be ground level. That meant hauling dirt from the back ditch (which the hubby was going to deepen for better drainage this summer, now it is done) to fill in that hole from the old pool. Wow, I didn't do but a little of the shoveling and my shoulders and back are killing me. I am just not use to this type of work anymore. I guess I should do more to keep myself in shape. LOL

So it has taken me all day to finish up this blog post. Now to spell check and publish so I can head to bed.