New Toy! CSM Circular Sock Knitting Machine.

[JeepHammer]

Now, I can't post my pictures, but a quick search on boobtube for Circular Sock Machine or CSM will be an eye opener!
What a piece of cast iron Victorian engineering!

Socks were one of the most expensive things you could buy at one time,
During WWI the government gave away CSMs to people that could produce socks for the troops,
Trench foot took out more troops and caused more amputations than battle did...

Along with old cast iron (mechanical, no plastic) sewing machines, and my hand cranked food preparation machines these things are the coolest engineering by far.
We have about 6 (more or less depending on what we buy or sell) sewing machines, and these will do everything from fine silk to heavy leather.
Now it's a 'Hobby' making our own socks, but think what a pair of good socks (which take a week or more to knit by hand) in 40-60 minutes would be worth should the supply chain be disrupted...
(The same is true for power, food, patching/mending, making support gear...)

I've shown my reloading equipment (clean, qualify, anneal, lower case roll, size & trim at about 3,000/hour),
Along with grain mills, including actual flour mills, big pressure canners and all the processing gear, solar power, sewing/manufacturing equipment, being able to knit socks/mufflers, hats, mittens & other cold weather gear is going to make a good supplement to our sustainability.

By the way, it takes 400 yards of sock weight yarn to make one pair of good cushion sole boot socks!
That little fact escaped me for 60 years (never unraveled a pair of socks)...

 

[churchmouse]

Now, I can't post my pictures, but a quick search on boobtube for Circular Sock Machine or CSM will be an eye opener!
What a piece of cast iron Victorian engineering!

Socks were one of the most expensive things you could buy at one time,
During WWI the government gave away CSMs to people that could produce socks for the troops,
Trench foot took out more troops and caused more amputations than battle did...

Along with old cast iron (mechanical, no plastic) sewing machines, and my hand cranked food preparation machines these things are the coolest engineering by far.
We have about 6 (more or less depending on what we buy or sell) sewing machines, and these will do everything from fine silk to heavy leather.
Now it's a 'Hobby' making our own socks, but think what a pair of good socks (which take a week or more to knit by hand) in 40-60 minutes would be worth should the supply chain be disrupted...
(The same is true for power, food, patching/mending, making support gear...)

I've shown my reloading equipment (clean, qualify, anneal, lower case roll, size & trim at about 3,000/hour),
Along with grain mills, including actual flour mills, big pressure canners and all the processing gear, solar power, sewing/manufacturing equipment, being able to knit socks/mufflers, hats, mittens & other cold weather gear is going to make a good supplement to our sustainability.

By the way, it takes 400 yards of sock weight yarn to make one pair of good cushion sole boot socks!
That little fact escaped me for 60 years (never unraveled a pair of socks)...

400 yards......seriously.......

 

[JeepHammer]

Double Needle Knitter working, will be WAY too boring for the "Extreme" types, but machine guys will love it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2lQ9-6qKh9g

Since some guys won't understand the capabilities of this little machine, how about knitted wire tubes,
Strain reliefs, protective bundled hoses/cables, ect.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9RFQH4Nlnr4

I hang stainless knitted tubes with a 'valve' in the bottom of seldom loaded brass from the rafters.
Open the valve, let out what you want. More room hanging from ceiling/rafters than I have shelf space/floor space for small cans.
Bullets in tubes hung over the bullet feeder makes a fast way to refill the bullet feeder.

What we do most is knitted product/produce bags,
Knit a tube with common (cheap) string, pour in product...
Chestnuts, buckeyes, dried peppers, whatever, then 'Staple' (like hog rings, we use aluminum sausage wire/pliers) and cut off separate packages.
It has a distinctive shelf appeal in this packaging, and our customers have noted by snipping off the wire you can unravel the bag, get free string...
Sustainability angle thing since there isn't any plastic in the packaging.

I can watch these machines work for hours the way the hooks ('needles') interlock the string/yarn/wire.
And as you might guess, I've automated the drive on the unit we use for production, but you can still hand crank it if necessary.

It's a little more than a 'Hobby' for me since it supports our home business.
People thing we are nuts for mixing 19th century technology with 21st century technology, but if it works & makes money, it's not exactly crazy or stupid.

 

[JeepHammer]

Goes nicely with the hand powered Sustainable Living stuff we have already, from manual reloading presses to food preparation & preservation, it *CAN* all be motor driven, or hand powered if things go to crap...

Plus, it's just crazy cool technology 'Gadgets' to mess with!

 

[churchmouse]

I just did watch that video......

 

[JeepHammer]

I just did watch that video......

While I use CNC/Digital/solid state PLCs, ect,
I'm a HUGE fan of mechanical/analog simply because it's durable and maintainable by the average guy with 2 extra IQ points.

I just got one running again with factory marked 100 year old needles.
Try that with anything 'Plastic' or 'Digital'!

I can always add a motor to the hand cranked machines, the same way we do reloaders, but I still have the manual option, and sometimes, it's just more enjoyable to hand crank something useful.

I've been retrofitting one with roller bearings, lapping in the metal on metal friction points, etc, we'll see how that turns out.
I also casted some brass for parts but don't have them machined yet,
My wife wants a gear reduction for the heavy, double knitting process, and that means hard brass or bronze reduced diameter crank gear/handle...
Brass also runs super smooth, dampens vibration in operation.
I don't have models (for molds) built of all parts yet, but I'm working on it in my off time.
I've seen some all brass examples and they are wonderful looking, and with about 500 pounds of cartridge brass/culled cases laying around here, why not?

The only all brass machines I've seen run about $20,000 USD and we would never spend that for one, but making it is another story...
Couldn't find a picture of all brass, this is as close as I could find...


She has several (more than a dozen) brass frame firearms she displays (and polishes) so if she wants this, who am I to say no?
It's not like she won't take care of it...

 

[churchmouse]

What a feat of engineering....

 

[JeepHammer]

What a feat of engineering....

I think so!
Not that I'm smart enough to pull anything like that off... But I can be them running again when we find them in junk stores.

It's actually turning out to be an income stream for bad weather winters, the old sewing machines are selling from $250 to $450 while sock machines are fetching over $1,000.
We haven't paid more than $45 for any of them, and it's mostly cleaning & tuning.

She likes the old can seamers (sealers) and canning retorts (pressure canners), but anything brass she looses her mind over.
I considered a brass sewing machine casting, but I believe that's above my skill level, I haven't figured out how to cast hollow housings yet.

I went through a stage when I made black powder pistols with brass frames, and she takes them to the cowboy shoots (SASS, etc) along with her brass frame revolving rifle.
Sets her apart a little from the Colt replica crowd, a woman loading her own black powder guns gets some looks!

She can't wait until this COVID crap is over so we can go to the shoots again...
She's already talking about taking her sock machine (with brass parts) to the events.
A lot of people do leather work, show they way the stuff used to be done and she wants to join in.
Her 1878 Gerheart machine & 1889 Singer should fit right in...

 

[JeepHammer]

Sitting in Cheyenne, WY. And can't sleep,
Figured out how to get a reduced crank size gear onto a 1:1 frame and have an idea how to inexpensively make the circular cam shell that moves the needles.

I need to source large diameter, thick wall brass tubing,
Cut the needle guide and the cam shell as separate parts and press fit the two.
Machining a profiled ledge (needle guide) inside a single thick wall tube is a pain in the butt.
Doing it so you can cut through the entire piece is a piece of cake.
Outside collar, inside V shaped needle guide, press together and done.

One thing about brass, you can silver solder anything on it anywhere and it's as strong as the brass itself.

Normal guys would be watching "BoobTube" (or worse) at this time of the morning.
My body is still on eastern time in the mountain time zone, this sucks particularly since I have a big day ahead...

 

[dprimm]

This is great! Would also love the reloading videos.
My family think I am nuts for going old school as well.

 

[JeepHammer]

The wife knitting on the Legare 47 I got running,
At least it hadn't been beaten with several hammers and left to rust on a dirt floor for 50-60 years.
Makes a big difference when cleaning & tuning is all it takes to get it running.

The first Auto Knitter up and running.
This one was a mess, someone wedged an off brand drum into it that was too big,
And then left it rust for 50-60 years...
Took a hammer and press to get it apart.
This is literally the first cast-on/run for this machine, I'm still tuning stitch size here.

Haven't figured out what color to paint them yet, I have old Ford engine blue (Dillon Reloader color) and black.

Since these are for the little woman, maybe something bright colored...?

There is another Legare 47 coming together, this one had a broken needle, then someone tried to beat it loose, broke teeth on the crank gear, etc.
It will probably be running next weekend... If we have bad weather again.

 

[JeepHammer]

This is great! Would also love the reloading videos.
My family think I am nuts for going old school as well.

Well, there isn't much that will stop you when there isn't any plastic to break or electronics to fry!

Her sewing machines won't do 89,000 different stitches, but they sew wonderfully.
(All Singer's doing, all I did was clean them up and do a little tuning).

The sock knitters have a STEEP learning curve, NOT for someone that wants instant gratification.
My wife is cooking right along as usual, but I wouldn't expect anything less from a woman that taught herself to tear down & clean black powders, her pistols/rifles/MP5,
And spent more than a few weekends helping rebuild everything from automatic transmissions to GMC superchargers (Blowers).

It's a team effort around here, and she more than pulls her weight!
It's all in how folks choose to spend their time and educate themselves...

 

[IndyDave1776]

Thank you for sharing such an interesting piece of practical history.

 

[JeepHammer]

Thank you for sharing such an interesting piece of practical history.

Thanks for the complement.

It's just a sustainable living thing for us, the wife is into fiber crafts,
Sewing, knitting, needlepoint, wool art, all that stuff.
She's actually made quite a bit of money doing this stuff, she's really good at it!
(I can't sew a button on without a trip to the hospital to remove the broken needle from my finger)

She LIKES anything old/cast iron, but she LOVES anything brass, like her collection of black powder pistols & rifles.
Most are reproductions, but she doesn't care...

Keep in mind she supported me on literally a trailer load of reloading stuff, 30 years of homesteading, car/bike racing, all the gun crap, so it's the least I can do.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Sounds pretty much like the lifestyle I am working my tail off to launch. I don't expect to have a whole lot of time left but I want to be certain that my daughter will eat when the shelves are bare.

 

[JeepHammer]

Sounds pretty much like the lifestyle I am working my tail off to launch. I don't expect to have a whole lot of time left but I want to be certain that my daughter will eat when the shelves are bare.

My opinion,
That's the wrong way to look at it.

I mix 19th century with 21st century,
I've been almost entirely off grid for about 25 years, my own water wells, my own solar power (electricity), etc.

In the beginning, it was the shock of not being an active duty Marine for 16 years,
"Disabled" and sent home to take pain pills & die.

I scraped up enough to buy land that was way out in the woods (helped PTSD),
And I wanted actual food, clean food.
The only way to make the land pay for itself was gardening/crops/pasture land.
I actually plowed/disk the gardens with a '73 Jeep the first 3 years until I ran into a cheap tractor that was rebuildable.

Now I home can, sealing cans with 100+ year old can seamers, sterilizing in 40-50 year old canning retorts (pressure vessels),
That are still based on 1850s technology.

And using digital time/temp data loggers to tell exactly when the food has reached temperature for sterilization.
I use electromagnetic induction to precisely heat those canning retorts.
No shortage of solar electric power while propane or wood costs me money & time.

I refuse to buy anything NEW from China if I can help it.
(Buying second hand isn't as bad as buying new)
Sending money to China makes no sense at all, but there is so much that's no longer made in America, so when I can I rebuild American made items. (Built to last!)

I was actually upset when I found out Dillon has many of their parts made in China, but what can you do, almost all reloaders have China made parts, if not the entire machine.

When I built my home I considered actual threats along with my energy production and what the home would consume.
It took about 5 extra years to scrape up money to build an earth sheltered home.
Geothermal temp regulation, never way too hot or cold, so the need for outside energy is very small.
Poured concrete/earth sheltered also means no issues from fire, flood, bugs, tornadoes, etc.
lots of passive solar helps with the energy bills, but that took an education...
That means no free time other than research & designing.

So now we have a home that takes virtually nothing to heat/cool, will last for 100 years or more WITHOUT MAINTENANCE,
we won't ever want for water, food, ect since it can all be done right here, with a few exceptions.

I'm a machinist/welder by training, been doing that for about 30 years, so I simply stocked up on tool bits, welding rods, all the stuff I would need in a big depression, or just bad times.

Keep in mind that it didn't happen overnight, and we had zero 'Entertainment Budget',
busting some rounds on my home built gun range, or fire down at our lake, or 50¢ yard sale movies was about it for 20 something years...
It takes dedication, and a LOT of hard work.

It's all in how you want to spend your time & money, I simply chose to do sustainable.

We don't have sheep/goats, but there are both just down the road for wool.

We don't do large livestock, but sides of beef or hogs come to us regularly for wiring or welding jobs...
Neighbor folks are a golden resource!

 

[Ziggidy]

The wife knitting on the Legare 47 I got running, View attachment 123307
At least it hadn't been beaten with several hammers and left to rust on a dirt floor for 50-60 years.
Makes a big difference when cleaning & tuning is all it takes to get it running.

The first Auto Knitter up and running.
This one was a mess, someone wedged an off brand drum into it that was too big,
And then left it rust for 50-60 years...
Took a hammer and press to get it apart. View attachment 123308
This is literally the first cast-on/run for this machine, I'm still tuning stitch size here.

Haven't figured out what color to paint them yet, I have old Ford engine blue (Dillon Reloader color) and black.

Since these are for the little woman, maybe something bright colored...?

There is another Legare 47 coming together, this one had a broken needle, then someone tried to beat it loose, broke teeth on the crank gear, etc.
It will probably be running next weekend... If we have bad weather again. View attachment 123309

I'm impressed!

 

[IndyDave1776]

I have what's left of the family farm. I have tractors and enough implements for most of my work. I have a jersey cow who is about old enough for a boyfriend. A production-oriented summer kitchen, permaculture, and building a large pond out of a hollow are in the planning phase. I have a lot of work and money ahead of me on this but I am very concerned about the time coming sooner rather than later where most everything is like toilet paper was a year ago and ammunition is now.

You have shared some really cool ideas which I really appreciate!

 

[drillsgt]

Sitting in Cheyenne, WY. And can't sleep,
Figured out how to get a reduced crank size gear onto a 1:1 frame and have an idea how to inexpensively make the circular cam shell that moves the needles.

I need to source large diameter, thick wall brass tubing,
Cut the needle guide and the cam shell as separate parts and press fit the two.
Machining a profiled ledge (needle guide) inside a single thick wall tube is a pain in the butt.
Doing it so you can cut through the entire piece is a piece of cake.
Outside collar, inside V shaped needle guide, press together and done.

One thing about brass, you can silver solder anything on it anywhere and it's as strong as the brass itself.

Normal guys would be watching "BoobTube" (or worse) at this time of the morning.
My body is still on eastern time in the mountain time zone, this sucks particularly since I have a big day ahead...

I helped teach a class in Cheyenne once, it's nice country.

 

[JeepHammer]

I have what's left of the family farm. I have tractors and enough implements for most of my work. I have a jersey cow who is about old enough for a boyfriend. A production-oriented summer kitchen, permaculture, and building a large pond out of a hollow are in the planning phase. I have a lot of work and money ahead of me on this but I am very concerned about the time coming sooner rather than later where most everything is like toilet paper was a year ago and ammunition is now.

You have shared some really cool ideas which I really appreciate!

I'm no 'Rocket Surgeon', it's pre-petrolium fertilizer, and *some* non-poison based pest control.

Gravity works the same way it has for the last 4-1/2 billion years, I don't think it will give up anytime soon,
Crap still rolls down hill, so I built on a hill.

Hill lets me use French Drains, so no ground water trying to get in the home.

I had some ideas I saw when I was a kid...
French Drains, air tubes to take advantage of poor man's geothermal,
My first big build was a root cellar, natural floor to keep humidity up, underground to keep temp down.
If you are going to preserve fresh produce, a root cellar is worth it's weight in gold.

Same deal with concrete floor, dry cold storage, which was my second build.
Dried food, cans, jars, and my solar batteries for overnight (or longer) energy without running a generator.

*IF* one is inclined, it's pretty easy to have more square footage than is in your plans.
Just remember anything underground has a top side thermal signature...
Lots of insulation is a really good idea in either case of high or low humidity storage.

Hillside means drainage, so if you have one, cut & fill.
If you have solid clay, it will work as concrete forms when you cut carefully.

Think it through, clean out plugs in every drain from crapper to septic.
If you have ever seen what it takes to clean out sewer lines, it's a cheap investment.
Plant a shrub to hide it if you want a clean looking lawn, but plugs save you a TON of money in the long run.

I didn't plant decorative trees, fruit & nut trees, even if so can't use it all, the turkeys, deer ect. flock to them.
Meat from vegetables!

Need something to slow people down?
Berry briars.
Nothing slows people down like briars to the crotch!

It's up to how you use your noggin, briars provide a degree of security, and they make food/money, really sweet food!