A peek at my new toy

**Steve Ashton** · 30th May 14, 02:43 PM

There is a new development.

The kind folks at Erlbacher-Gearhart just sent me the world's first ever cylinder and ribber combination where there are as many needle slots in the ribber as the cylinder.

This has been one of the major complaints about CSM's all this time. The usual configuration is half the number of needles in the ribber as the cylinder.

For those who have no idea what this means I'm sorry but I can now do 3-2, 3-3- and 4-3 ribs. Just like modern Kilt Hose.

I am really excited. The new ribber and cylinder showed up in the mail today and I'll install it tonight.

I will be trying this new rib on socks all weekend so stay tuned.

**jhockin** · 30th May 14, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by Steve Ashton

I will be trying this new rib on socks all weekend so stay tuned.

Just remember to eat, drink and sleep too! eh?

**Pleater** · 31st May 14, 05:26 AM

I am positively swooning with envy now.

The ability of the flatbed machine and ribber combination to make the various ribs you mention is what has kept me knitting the leg and top of foot parts on the machine, adding a heel flap and then using tiny double pointed needles to knit the rest by hand picking up the edge stitches as I went in order to join everything together for the foot.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

**KiltedKnome** · 31st May 14, 04:45 PM

Originally Posted by Pleater

I am positively swooning with envy now.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

Anne, we have two guest rooms in our house....one upstairs (bathroom shared with The Wizard and Knome...horrors) and one in the lower suite with lots of privacy (we decided not to rent out my mother's apartment after the last tenant vacated).....XMarkers have priority...you can always come visit and Steve would probably let you play with his sock machine!

**Old Hippie** · 5th June 14, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by KiltedKnome

Anne...you can always come visit and Steve would probably let you play with his sock machine!

Do it, Anne! Put one change of clothes and a toothbrush into a BIG suitcase with all the yarn you can lay hands on, book your flights. Spend a sleepless weekend cranking out a lifetime supply of socks, pack them up and hop that big bird back home.

--

Unemployment isn't working!

**The Wizard of BC** · 19th June 14, 05:56 PM

I've been working evenings on cranking hose.

These are not easy machines to master. They are old school technology There are no computers to do the work for you or to watch over the work and warn you if something is going wrong.

One secret I have found is to loosen up everything. Even your thinking when working with these machines.

I've gone through quite a bit of yarn trying to get one good sock. Dropped stitches that you can't see till you are done, broken yarns, and all sorts of things.

I've worked through these issues one at a time and I finally made one really good sock.

So, without further ado --- I present my first quality sock.

If you count the cost of the machine, the yarn, and the manhours I have in this so far - this one sock would retail for about $3200.00.

Here is the whole sock.
Note that the toe has not yet been closed up. This is done after you take the sock off the machine and is done by hand.

Here is a close up of the 2 by 1 rib cuff. This cuff is double thickness and 3" wide.

And a close up of the 5 by 3 rib leg portion.

And of the heel.

And just for a comparison, Here is the heel of a standard wool-rich sock that you find in kilt shops all over the world.

The sock it did just before this one had a few holes in it due to dropped stitches but I think overall it looked really good. This is Merino wool.