Bad Pinkie, Bad, Bad, Girl
I’ve taken such good care of you. Bill rescued you from the thrift store. We cleaned you. We oiled you with Ballistol. We brought you in from the cold garage.
Why do you keep misbehaving?
I need to make a sample so everyone can see how great you are. Even at your age, you still have so much potential. Please be a good girl and stop jamming. I want to show our visitors what you can do.
Info
I’d love to have a picture of my solution. Something simple to share should your Passap jam when yarn is added.
But I don’t. I’m totally frustrated and the Pinkie has gone back to the garage so the Duo 80 can come inside.
The locks glide effortlessly across the needle bed in all letter settings without yarn. When yarn is added, it jams part way in with every pass. If I wiggle the locks back and forth, I can eventually get them to move. I’m not even using the pushers. They are in rest position with the N/X lever in N. I’ve changed strippers. I’ve made sure the yarn is flowing freely. I’ve tried weights. Nothing works.
My only guess is that the lock needle plates need to be screwed down a bit. They seem awfully loose in the N position compared to the plates on the Duo 80. It is not a lot of play, but I’m wondering if the tension added by the yarn is causing the plates to slowly shift out of alignment as the locks move across the bed, jamming the needle butts into the plates rather than staying in their channels.
Otherwise, the jamming makes no sense at all.
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November 2, 2006
8 comments
Hi. this scares me. I just acquired a pink passap duomatic. Don’t know a thing about it. no manual. Don’t know if all the tools, attachments, parts are in or on or under. It has four mast yarn – one little cylinder (grey is missing) – will need a good clean up – very dusty. … but the carriage glides. Hope it’s a good sign. Thanks for all the info you share/provide on your site – Enka.
If you haven’t seen it all ready, make sure you download my free photo tutorial on how to deep clean a passap duomatic. Here is a direct link:
https://www.knittsings.com/how-to-deep-clean-a-passap-duomatic/
I’ve frequently seen the Passap Duomatic 80 manual on ebay for around $5-10 US. The cover looks like the picture here:
https://www.knittsings.com/the-passap-duo-80/
The only difference I know of is that the Duo 80 has an HX lock setting for circular fair isle. The rest is identical.
This is a really common problem, don’t despair. It usually is a yarn problem. If you are jamming on the second row of the cast on then it is probably the yarn and Stitch size. Use 2/24 yarn( very fine ) if you are going to use the SS used in the manual. Otherwise you need to start your cast on with SS 2.5,3.75,then to 4. Often one tends to think we can use the same size yarn on the PASSAP that we can on the Japanese machines, but really we need to think much smaller for double bed work…SUZ
Suz,
Thank you for the suggestions. For now the Pinkie is banished to the top shelf in my closet. At the time I posted this, I couldn’t even get the lock to move across once with yarn installed. It consistently jammed about a third of the way into the pass. I agree that adjusting the yarn tension is the place I should start.
Thank you Kathryn, for the info about yarn for the Passap.
I have just completed the deep clean process thanks to your instructions and Michael Becker’s book, ” Be your own Passap Paramedic” and I still can’t cast on.
I’ve used single bed racking cast on, alternating needle cast on, etc., but the lock always does very nicely on the first pass, but then on the 2nd pass all the yarn is removed from where it was placed (behind the latches) and doesn’t get caught by the next set of needles.
I’ve wondered if my strippers need aligning and will try that.
Another concern is that the needles (and the machine) were left alone for over 10 years, uncovered, and had quite a bit of roughness at the head of each one. I sanded some, but not all. Could just be that the needles need to be perfect?
I passed up a collection of 400 needles for just $80. Ouch. Could have used those, I guess.
Let me know what you think. I really need some help.
Thanks,
Kathleen M.
Hello,
I just read all the comments of jamming locks on the Passap.
I have recently bought a Passap Duomatic 80 machine which was very dirty. It has been deepcleaned (I hope) by a firm which sells knittingmachines and also offers cleaning older ones.
When it came back, at first, it worked properly, but after a short time I could not cast on, not even with very thin yarn. All the needles kept up standing and blocked the locks so they could not move left or right. Furtunately I always could manage to unlock with gx-settings but sometimes I had to use brute force and a few broken needles to get out the strippers first.
I thougt, after endless times of trying to cast on: I go back to that store, but at last I tried to solve the problem with some oil on the bottom of the needles of both beds and to knit “dry’ without yarn to spread the oil evenly. And it orked! I have had no jams afterwards. Problably they have used too little oil after cleaning the machine.
I hope this will also work for your machine.
I must admit that the pinkie so irritated me it has been relegated to the top shelf of a closet, wrapped neatly in a clean sheet.
I’ve kept the machine for parts at the very least. I haven’t ruled out trying everyone’s suggestions to see if I can’t get it to knit pass the area where the locks always jam. I hate being defeated by a machine.
It is now 2014 (the latest comments here are 5 years old?) and am trying to get my Passap pinkie, which I was just given, to work.
Thank you Kathryn for your cleaning instructions, which I used. I put the machine back together but cannot get it to cast on and make anything like a knit loop.
I can do about two and a half rows before my machine jams. These rows are not, however, looped through the previous row. They are simply loops over the needles.
I followed the instructions in the manual concerning the settings, both for double and single bed knitting. I rechecked everything. I have looked at every source I could find to resolve the issue but cannot see where I am going wrong.
Is anyone able to give me a clue where to turn next?
Thanks