Putting on the Heat

As our knitting machines age, a very common problem for the Brother/Knitking machine carriages is to have the MC button that controls the fairisle selection stuck to the thread lace button below it. These sticky buttons are caused by grease oil and gunk that hardens inside the carriage.

Today, I got out my Knitking Bulky 270 to do a little fairisle on a Christmas Gift and the buttons were stuck hard together like they had been welded. I got out the machine lube and sprayed the underside of the carriage. I turned the carriage upside down and waited a while. When I came back, the buttons were just as stuck as before.

I pondered on this a while, very frustrated. I was ready to knit my project and did not want further delays. Suddenly, I thought about the hair dryer.

I decided to try warming up the gunk to see if the button would release. I held the running hair dryer to the underside of the carriage for maybe a minute to warm all the gunk up. The next time I pressed the button it had been freed!

I am a very happy camper.