Broken needles cause holes, ladders, or broken stitches in your knitting. The easiest to spot, is a hook that has broken from the needle. A damaged latch can be a troublemaker too. Sometimes they get crooked and no longer close properly. Sometimes they get caught under the hook. The latter can often be fixed.
A needle with a damaged transfer spring can knit fine but will act up when transferring.
Here is a guide to doing a thorough check of your needles:
- Push all the needles ALL the way up, to compare them properly. It is much easier to spot needle issues if you inspect several at once, so with a quick scan, you can compare them and see which one is not exactly like the rest
- Make sure they are well flat against the needle bed. Sometimes needles get bent toward the floor/ceiling, and that is harder to see. One way to check this is to go to the other side of the machine, so you have a better vision for this.
- Open the latches (you can use the needle bed slider plate).
- Check that they are all perfectly parallel. You can use a marker to mark those that are slightly bent so can quickly identify those needing replacement.
- Check that all the hooks are opened the same way. It is easy to spot hooks slightly more open, particularly after many hours of operation, so take a close look at this.
- Check that all the latches open and close smoothly.
- Lastly, lower a bit the buts so the carriage can pull them down smoothly. A needle with a broken butt can’t be selected by the carriage and won’t knit. This is easily recognized by looking at the aligned butts.
Repeat the check on the other needle bed.