Manuf. of Genie KH-710

[is...@nb.net]

I bought a used knitting machine and would like to know who
manufactured it. There are no manuals. It is a Genie KH-710.
Searches have shown that Brother made a KH-710. Is this made
by brother?

Thanks,
P.Isaac

[Helen Fleischer]

I used to have one of those. The ribber I got to fit it was made by
Brother, and the KH 710 brackets that came with the knit leader worked
perfectly on the Genie, so I suspect it was indeed a Brother by another
name. Great little machine and I almost wish I still had it. Those
buttons you used for patterning were kind of fun to play with and make
up new pattern variations. The 8 button Brother book patterns do work
with the 710, if you can find one that someone was willing to part with.
Most of us kept them, I think because it was easy to convert them to 24
stitch punch card patterns.

he...@min.net http://www.min.net/~helen
Helen "Halla" Fleischer,
Fantasy & Fiber Artist in Fairland, MD USA

[is...@nb.net]

Thanks for replying. I found it in a second hand store for a low price,
so grabbed it for my wife. She just bought a used Knitking, for much
more, but likes the case and packing for the Genie. I will now be
looking for the manuals for this machine, because none came with it.

P.Isaac

[Helen Fleischer]

Good luck with it. If you can find it, _Tami Nobuyuki's Knitting Machine
Workbook Number 1: Basic Techniques_ is an excellent way to learn either
machine. It does rely on the machine's manual to fill in some info on
what the carriage settings do, but you can also figure that out by
fiddling them and seeing what they do to the selected needles.
Come to think of it, that book is how I learned to knit on my Genie 710,
since it was my first machine, and I still have those 710 settings
copied into my workbook from the manual, even though I was a good girl
and included my manual when I traded my machine in. Here they are:

Needle Positions:
A: non-working
B: working position, general work
C: partial knitting position for pull-up and tuck
D1: pattern knitting position
D11: pattern knitting position for fair isle
E: Holding position

Cam Lever Settings

I : Knitting any position but A
II: B and middles, partial knitting
III: Holding (B&C only)

Notice that you have those levers on both sides of the carriage, so you
can control that action such that it works in one direction and not the
other. That is something you want to avoid doing by accident. Frankly I
wouldn't put a lot of faith in what I copied in about the cam lever
settings. I really did not understand short row and holding positions
very well when I was first learning the knitting machines. The fact that
I had those 2 multi-position cam levers when all around me had a single
switch on the carriage didn't help matters much.

Buttons

Tuck: used for tuck stitch patterns
Part: used for fair isle and slip stitch patterns
Plain: cancels prior button settings
Change Knob: N=normal, WT=weaving, MC=fairisle
Weaving pattern buttons: N=normal, WT=weaving

I think you'll find that apart from having the holding cam levers
instead of a single hold switch and having extra positions on the needle
bed, the carriage controls work very much the same as the KnitKing. The
big difference will be in the pattern controls. The Genie has a row of
buttons and the arrangement of down and up positions of those buttons
is what controls the needle movement in groups of 8. When you put that
odd little wrench on the slots of the knob at the back and push it to
the side like a lever the selected needles move. You select which
needles move to pattern positions and which stay back with the buttons.
You can reverse that selection without changing the buttons, by the A-B
selector.

To see that in action, push every other button down. Use the lever to
select needles. Move the carriage across and they'll go back to the
pattern working position. Switch to B and operate the lever, and the
opposite needles will come out, the ones that stayed back the last time.

You can also put needles into the various positions by hand to alter
that pattern in ways not divisible by 8. Or just do it from scratch
without using the mechanism at all. Actually you can do the manual
selection with the punchcard machines, too, and with any brain-dead
electronic machines you may find. However many purely manual machines
lack the sort of carriage that lets you do fair isle in one pass.

On Mon, 29 May 2000 22:47:42 -0400, is...@nb.net wrote:
>Thanks for replying. I found it in a second hand store for a low price,
>so grabbed it for my wife. She just bought a used Knitking, for much
>more, but likes the case and packing for the Genie. I will now be
>looking for the manuals for this machine, because none came with it.
>
>P.Isaac
>
>Helen Fleischer wrote:
>>
>> I used to have one of those. The ribber I got to fit it was made by
>> Brother, and the KH 710 brackets that came with the knit leader worked
>> perfectly on the Genie, so I suspect it was indeed a Brother by another
>> name. Great little machine and I almost wish I still had it.

[....]

[is...@nb.net]

Thanks again, you've been very helpful.
Will pass on the my wife, who is the one to use it.

[DIANA JOHNSON]

I bought one more than 20 years ago and the manual looks like this download:
http://machineknittingetc.com/brother-kh710-user-guide-guide.html
I still have the machine and am going to try to use it again seeing that Addi machines are so costly and seem to have problems.