Adventures in Machine Knitting: Part 2, The Refurbishing

If you have a love for antiques and vintage things, then you know that they’re typically not found in the most pristine of conditions. Aside from the most rare of instances, old things are usually grimy, rusty, bent and banged, and well, old. Of course that doesn’t cause you to love it any less, and most people, myself included, thoroughly enjoy a good refurbishing of an old thing. Resurrecting an object from the past and making it shine again gives me a thrill.

Agatha was no exception to this rule. (See Part One of this series to meet Agatha) 

If you couldn’t tell from my un-boxing video, when she arrived she was grimy and gunky with a tiny bit of rust on the needles and the knobs on the Lock were seized up. Luckily though, none of the needles were bent and she still had most of her parts, along with a few extras that I found in the side trays. She was missing the row counter, which I found a replacement for in Staffordshire, England, and am presently awaiting its arrival. It should be here any day now and I’m so darn excited about it. 

Before my machine even arrived, I scoured the interwebs for information on how to best go about cleaning it up and making sure it was working properly. According to the user’s manual, which is in perfect condition, I should use “gazoline” to clean the machine. However, not wanting to huff gas fumes, I opted to use Marvel Mystery Oil for cleaning the machine itself and Blaster Penetrating Catalyst on the seized lock knobs. Thank you to The Answer Lady Knits/ Ask Jack for your very informative videos and the suggestion of using the Mystery Oil.

Note: These aren't affiliant links, they're just here to help you out.

Another Note: Please use appropriate safety equipment for this project. I'm relaying the steps I took to clean my machine and get it working properly, however, I cannot guarantee a perfect outcome and therefore cannot claim responsibility if something goes awry.

To thoroughly clean your vintage machine, you will need:

Marvel Mystery Oil

Blaster Penetrating Catalyst (I’m sure another brand will do)

A silicone based lubricant such as WD-40 Specialist Water Resistant Silicone Lubricant

Several small brass bristle brushes

One or more old toothbrushes 

Rubber gloves, vinyl gloves, plastic gloves, whatever you can find to protect your hands from chemicals

Your Spanner that came with the machine or a socket wrench with a 9mm socket

2 Plastic containers that you do not care much for and are large enough to accommodate the Lock in one and the Stripper and Needles in the other. The Chinese Take-out containers work well.

Some old towels and rags

Some blue shop towels, although I just used paper towels because I didn’t have any shop towels on hand. The blue shop towels are preferred because they are lint free and much more durable.

A flat-head screwdriver small enough to unscrew the nylon rails from the Lock

Toothpicks, optional

Onward to cleaning and refurbishing our Vintage Passap Speed-o-Knit M201, Passap Automatic, or other similar knitting machine!!

I placed the Lock in a plastic throw-away container, took it outside and sprayed around the knobs and underneath with the penetrating catalyst. I let it sit outside (because it smells bad) while I cleaned the rest of the machine, checking on it occasionally, working the knobs and spraying more penetrating catalyst as needed.

I then got another plastic throw-away container large enough to accommodate the Stripper and all 201+ needles and then

proceeded to remove the front rail. That’d be the one with the Stitch Scale on it. 

Side Note: this part is a bit of the pain and you probably don’t need to completely

remove the rail unless absolutely necessary. I probably could’ve gotten by with just leaving it on which would’ve saved me at least an hour of working on this thing, er… I mean, this lovely lady.

In order to remove the needles, you need to unlock the front rail. You can do this by tilting your machine onto its back and open the Shutting Clamps for the front rails. (You’ll have to slide out the little drawers on each side in order to get to all of the clamps. Just set them aside for now and we’ll clean them later) You can then place it back on its feet and gently lift the front rail. It may be a bit stuck and you may have to persuade it with a flat-head screwdriver or something else flat enough to work under the rail. Once you have the rail loose, you can then lift the needles out towards the back by grasping them by the Needle Foot. That’d be the little knobby thing on the back of the needle. 

Place the Needles and the Stripper, without the brushes, into your other plastic container and pour in enough Marvel Mystery Oil to cover them. You can also soak the Feather Combs and any of the tools if needed.

**You’ll probably want to do this in a well ventilated area.** Although the mystery oil does smell like spearmint, it’s probably not good for you to breathe. My ventilation was probably not adequate as I did start to feel a bit loopy after a while. This also could be attributed to the fact that I was up until 4am working on this thing. Regardless, don’t be like me and make sure you have adequate ventilation. 

This is where it starts to get tedious… gloves on, towels and rags out.

Whilst the needles and Stripper are soaking, you can proceed to clean the whole machine using your toothbrush (preferably one that you do not want to use again), brass bristle brush and Marvel Mystery Oil. You can dip into the plastic container that the needles are soaking in. It’ll be okay. Use the toothbrush for the painted parts and the brass brush for the needle bed. Oh, and you’ll want to set an old towel underneath the machine to catch any drips. Make sure to get down in the grooves as there might be a lot of grime in there. You may need to employ your optional toothpicks.

Scrubby, scrubby, scrubby with your toothbrush and wipey, wipey with your rags or shop/paper towels. Be sure to get in the Rails, under the front Rail, in the Striking Comb, around the posts for the Feather Combs, every nook and cranny. You’ll also want to clean the slide rails for the drawers and the grooves of the drawers themselves. This makes them easier to open and close.

By this time, the knobs on the Lock should’ve released and you should be able to move them up and down easily. There will probably still be a lot of gunky build up from the decades old petroleum based machine oil that was advised to be used on these so you’ll need to soak it in Marvel Mystery Oil as well. Pull the knobs up, and pour in enough Mystery Oil so that the knob shafts can soak too.

Now, we’re going to clean the needles with a brass bristle brush. It’s going to take forever but you’ll be glad you did this in the long run. Just scrub off any rust you find, making sure to check the inside of the Latch Tongue. Scrub around the Moveable Latch and make sure it can move freely. Wipe off the excess Mystery Oil and place the needle back in the needle bed. Repeat 200 times. If you happen to have the 3 spare needles, then you’ll want to clean those too. The Mystery Oil will prevent them from rusting in the future. You can also split this up over two days. A longer soak won’t hurt them and it definitely won’t hurt the Lock. 

Once the Needles are all cleaned up and placed back into the Needle Bed, slide them back and forth in their channels a bit and make sure they’re moving smoothly. If they stick a bit, double check that the channel is free of debris and make sure the needle isn’t bent (one of mine was). If you’re lucky enough to have extra needles, then just replace it. If you don’t have any spare needles, then you can either leave a channel empty at the end or check out the links at the end of this post and see if they have needles for sale. If your needles are doing fine, you can then lock the front rail back down. 

Now, we’re going to clean the Stripper, which sounds a bit more naughty than it really is. Start with the toothbrush and clean around all the little pivot points (pink arrows) underneath. Make sure that everything moves smoothly. Slide the spring adjuster back and forth. Slide it to 4 and press on the Bakelite pusher “thingies”(purple arrows), underneath and make sure they move smoothly and evenly (I have found that they have different resistances from each other on lower numbers and at first thought mine were broken). If your Stripper is extra grimey you can use the brass bristle brush, just avoid scrubbing the painted parts so as not to damage it. Clean any grime that may be stuck in the Stripper brushes using your toothbrush, wipe any excess Mystery Oil from the Stripper and set it aside.

Do the same with the Feather Combs and any of the tools that you’ve also soaked.

Finally, we get to cleaning the Sliding Lock. There most likely will be a lot of old machine oil build-up on the underside of the Lock and around the knobs. Between the penetrating oil and being soaked in Mystery Oil, however, things should clean up easily. Using your small flat-head screwdriver, unscrew the nylon rails from the lock and set them aside, being sure to put the screws in a safe place. Give the whole lock a good scrub with your toothbrush dipped in Mystery Oil. Move the needle guides around and make sure to clean around and under them. If needed, you can remove the steel spring guides on the far left and right using the spanner or socket wrench (I've already removed one of mine). Don’t unscrew anything else that requires a flat-head screwdriver though, as they are holding springs and other mechanisms in place.

My Lock had a lot of debris from the degrading feet of the machine in it and required some flushing with Mystery Oil. 

Once everything is cleaned up and moving smoothly, wipe off the excess Mystery Oil and reassemble. If your nylon rails are warped like mine were, then they’ll require a bit of finagling to get back on. The trick is to not tighten the screws until you’ve gotten them all started. This will give you enough wiggle room to get each screw into place.

Now that your Lock is nice and clean, you can reattach the Stripper.

Time to reassemble and lubricate. Bust out the WD-40 Specialist Water Resistant Silicone Lubricant, preferably with the straw attachment and spray the following places pointed out in these conveniently provided visual references.

Try to avoid lubricating the area where the needle heads rest, however, as you don’t want to get lube stains on your knitting. If any over-spray does occur, then you can just wipe it off with a paper/shop towel.

Put your needles into the Working Position, slide your lock into the guide rails and with both knobs pulled up, gently slide the lock across the machine, but don’t force it. If the lock feels like its grabbing in the guide rails then spritz a little more Silicone Lubricant. If the needles aren’t moving smoothly in the channels, spritz more lube there and if they’re feeling grabby in the Lock, spritz more lube on the Needle Feet. 

As long as everything is clean, lubed and not bent or damaged in some way, then the Lock should glide back and forth smoothly. Pop the knobs down and slowly slide the Lock back and forth across the bed a couple of times. All the Needles should move smoothly and the latches should be left open. If this isn’t the case, then clean/lube accordingly. If something needs to be replaced, you can check the links at the end of this post.

I hope this post was helpful to you in your vintage knitting machine refurbishing endeavors.

I so very much hope that you were successful and that you now have a fully functioning Passap Speed-o-Knit or whatever similar vintage knitter you happen to be working on.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns and I will try my best to help you out. 

Adieu, my friends.

Sincerely,

Shanna

P.S. Here you will find the aforementioned links to various knitting machine parts suppliers that sometimes have vintage Passap parts and will, hopefully, have what you need.

eBay

Sewknit

The Knitting Closet

Andee Knits

Passap M201 Manuals