Blown away!

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I just can't help being blown away by the reach the internet has. Anyone who knows us or even has read a few entries on this blog, knows we use some wonderful antique Bentley Komet sock machines to knit our pure wool Mongrel Socks and from time to time experience problems with them. As they are so old and the technical knowledge we need is hard find, even small issues can be a production stopping event. Well.....it is kind of comforting to know there's some one halfway around world dealing with the same thing. Even I have resorted to trawling the internet looking for more information on these mongrel machines, without any success I should add. This morning an email greeted me, a plea from a man in the UK, having problems with his own old Komet. Here's how our our email volley went
(complete with our shocking spelling)..............

I see from your blog your a bit of a hand with a Bentley Komet. I have a Komet BR model and due to well a few issues I had it part stripped due to a break down but got dstracted for a while father was taken ill and the machine got left.I've got back to it now but it keeps locking up when the recip.clutch disengages, I've timed it to the marks but does the cylinder have to be in a certain position also when timing. Ive varied the quadrant mark on the recip pinion a tooth either way but then it either locks going in or coming out of the toe / heel. Any help would be apreciated my UK contact has been taken ill with cancer and I don't want to bother him with my problems.

Richard

My reply...
Hi Richard,
Argh! I sorry we can't be much help to you. We still have to get our guy in when problems with the clutch arise. Thankfully that only happens very occasionally. These BR's are great old machines, but we have found over the years, the less fiddling with them the better. The only thing I can think of tht might be the problem-hard to explain because I don't know what the parts are supposed to be called-it the 2 cogs that lock together @ the top of the machine in the top right under the insection plate as you stand in front can be 180 degree's out which will cause jamming as you've decribed.
Don't know if that'll help but worth a try.
Goodluck.
Helen.

His reply....
Well many thanks for the reply; its late now so just a quick thank you, for your prod in the right direction it was indeed half a turn out due to me misreading what in my defense is a poor quality drawing. It looks like a fine tune and all will be well again now it’s timed correctly. Do you have any set up information on your machines, I have a little and it may be of use to you also, perhaps we could pool what we have, information is hard to come across. The cogs are called the clutch the one on the left which reciprocates is the reciprocating pinion. I know the names but couldn’t get them to work.

Thanks again
Richard

Yay! what a nice result. I'll definitely be getting back to him in the future and organising an exchange in information, I think this may be the beginning of a mutually beneficial e-friendship.
PS I was also delighted to see he hails from a place called North Kelsey Moor in the UK, our daughters name is Kelsey too. She's gorgeous inside and out, and I bet so is North Kelsey Moor.