[HN Gopher] Using the Silver Reed SK840 Knitting Machine
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Using the Silver Reed SK840 Knitting Machine
Author : Paul_S
Score : 68 points
Date : 2022-09-19 12:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (wiki.cci.arts.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (wiki.cci.arts.ac.uk)
| 112233 wrote:
| Maybe someone knows and could answer, please: Who is making these
| machines now?
|
| As much as I can find, none of the following companies are making
| (home) knitting machines for quite a while anymore: Brother,
| Toyota, Pfaff, Juki.
|
| No idea what this Silver Reed is.
| ics wrote:
| Pretty much just Silver Reed, but their machines seem closest
| to the Brother and other Japanese models. The brand is UK but
| at least their knitting machines are built and ship from Japan.
| itronitron wrote:
| I think the Silver Reed is a UK brand >>
| https://silverviscount.co.uk/index.php?route=templates/stock...
| rainburg wrote:
| No one.
|
| The rise of cheap and abundant clothing basically finished the
| production of domestic knitting machines.
|
| Toyota stopped production around 1990, Brother's last machine
| was produced in ~1997, and Pfaff closed their business in 2001.
|
| Just like the Juki, Brother, and Toyota, Silver Reed was a
| Japanese company (known primarily for their typewriters). They
| moved their knitting machine business in the early 1990s to
| China, just around the time the SK840 model was released. No
| newer Silver Reed models were designed since then. Silver Reed
| (the Japanese one) itself is defunct since the Fukushima
| earthquake, I believe.
|
| The only new model of knitting machine that can be slightly
| considered "domestic" is Kniterate
| (https://www.kniterate.com/). However, at this size and price
| (EUR16k) it's more of a machine for fashion designers,
| dressmaking studios, and the like.
|
| Personally, this makes me very sad. There was a time when hand-
| knitting offered endless possibilities and machine-knitting
| sorta like a fast, by very limited shortcut.
|
| With the arrival of industrial machines like the Shima Seiki
| MACH2X not only it is possible to knit the whole garment
| without seams (as compared to already good circular hand-
| knitting), it's possible to have some texture, too. All thanks
| to four needle beds instead of the traditional two.
| "Traditional" for industrial machines and some domestic ones
| like Pfaff Duomatic -- most domestic machines typically had
| only one bed.
|
| Unfortunately, with the death of domestic knitting machines,
| such technology would never be available for the regular
| people.
| progre wrote:
| I picked up a Bond knitting machine ("the incredible sweater
| machine") for about 20 planetary credits last year. The pull
| length can be adjusted, alowing for diffrent yarn thikness but
| that's the only controll available. Anything you want to do
| beyond square single color pieces is very tricky, the notion that
| this machine "makes sweaters" is a joke.
|
| That said, it's surprisingly fun to use. Looking forward to the
| dark months!
| blt wrote:
| I love the mix of detailed encyclopedia-like information and
| institution-specific "ask Agnes" notes. Not sure what makes it so
| charming. Maybe it's nice to see such a high level of effort put
| into something without the expectation of a large audience.
| nielsole wrote:
| It is really a shame that knitting machines more or less stopped
| being produced in the late 90ies.
|
| There is https://www.kniterate.com/ but it is 16k$. You must be
| really into knitting to pay that price /s
|
| Most machines you find online are decades old or simplistic
| products that are more or less only useful for scarfs and socks.
|
| I wish the kniterate founders had succeeded in what I understand
| was their original vision in creating open hardware for
| hobbyists.
| scetron wrote:
| A lot of these knitting machines at some point upgraded to disks
| instead of punch cards, or had the ability to add them later.
| Some of them can use a data cable to a computer to control them.
|
| There's also this really cool kind of hack called All Yarns Are
| Beautiful which switches out the knitting machine's computer with
| an Arduino with a custom hat to drive to the mechanism that
| controls the needles.
|
| https://ayab-knitting.com/
| pneumatic1 wrote:
| At my last job I made an app that takes a bitmap as input and
| returns it converted to a coded pattern that's readable by a
| knitting machine along with knitting instructions.
|
| The machines I made it for were 25-30 years old and my patterns
| would end up loaded on floppy disks. I played with some new
| machines though and tbh was pretty unimpressed with the progress.
| Nike and Adidas knit like all their shoes so I think the machine
| manufacturers are just all-in on that.
| MandieD wrote:
| Following one of the links on that page, the Knitted Radio (FM
| transmitter!): http://www.ireneposch.net/the-knitted-radio/
| MengerSponge wrote:
| A friend of mine did his physics PhD on knitted materials. IIRC,
| his experimental model was monofiliment knitted sheets, made on a
| machine just like this one.
|
| A particularly cool paper of his:
| https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.12...
| uticus wrote:
| > Knitting is distinct from weaving: in weaving, fabric is
| created by interlacing 2 sets of threads at right angles to one
| another, while knitting involves taking a single thread and
| looping it around itself, one row at a time.
|
| ...now looking a little closer at my t-shirt and slowly realizing
| what I've been taking for granted.
| Paul_S wrote:
| Most of those knitters still use punch cards, even new ones.
| Appears there's not much benefit for them to switch to electronic
| control.
| janekm wrote:
| Fascinating. It appears they also use punch cards for their
| catalog photos:
| https://silverviscount.co.uk/image/cache/catalog/viscount-im...
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