Has anyone here had problems with dull points on one of your wooden DPNs? I just picked up some size 1-1/2 (2.5 mm) Crystal Palace bamboo needles to make my Magico socks, and I'm noting a problem with the same needle every time I use it on the socks I'm knitting. On close examination, the one needle's points seem not as sharp as the others.
Has anyone else had this problem? If it were needles I'd made myself, I'd have no qualms about sanding the points down, but I don't know if the Crystal Palace bamboo needles are coated with anything after shaping, so I'm hesitant to fix the problem myself. Should I take them back and exchange them, or just get out my fine grit sandpaper and have at it?
If you use fine grit sandpaper, use REALLY fine grits: 600, 1000, 1500. (People used to advise going to an automotive specialty store to get these, but the little fingernail buffing boards (NOT emery boards) you get at a beauty supply store work very well--they are such fine grits that they don't feel gritty to your fingers.
I'd take them back, not because you can't fix them yourself, but because you shouldn't have to. The manufacturer/retailer would probably appreciate the feedback about the needles and the chance to right things for you.
I bought a pair of Clover size 7 needles last year for a lace project. It didn't take long for me to realize I needed needles with sharper points. Following the advice of others here, I sanded the tips and was very pleased with the results.
Most of the CP needles have a polyurethane varnish finish. This will have penetrated somewhat. If you must sand deeper than the varnish, then you can reapply PV. However, I often take the PV off my CP and refinish with tung oil and a finishing wax.
To sand a uniform point, try chucking the needle into an electric drill and use the drill to rotate the point against fine (400 grit) sand paper held on a flat surface. Once you have the point shape you want, then polish with finer sand papers.
Thanks for the tips and opinions on sanding. I've made my own knitting needles and a crochet hook before, so I'm no stranger to hand shaping and sanding.
VP and Katherine, like Jan said, the LYS I got the needles from is a place I don't get to that often as they keep ever more brief hours as the owners/operators age. If it wasn't so hard to get to them, I'd probably take them back and exchange.
However, I've decided to sand them down myself. The needles are fine enough I'm not going to use a drill to touch up the points. I'll just wrap the sandpaper around the tips and twirl the needle around inside.
As for refinishing, I know I can get polyurethane varnish from the local hardware store, but I don't know if I'll use that to refinish the tips. I have some Deft clear wood finish that the DH has on hand from a wood project of his that I can use, or I can do what I did with my handmade oak needles and hooks-treat them with linseed oil and let them soak it up and then apply wax to the tips. I can add more linseed oil and wax as needed to keep the ends from drying and splitting like I do on my other handmade tools.
Are the needles you buy as good as the needles you make? Are the needles you make as good as the needles you buy?
Why?
The needles that I make are not as pretty as the needles that I buy. I do not think that I would buy the needles that I make. But somewhere in the swatching, the bought needles end up back in the stash, and the knitting is done on the needles that I make. (In fact, sometimes, I will make a special set of needles for a project.) Maybe, if I spent more on my commercial needles, I would feel more compelled to use them and they would get more use. Maybe, if I spent more on the commercial needles that I buy, they would just be better needles and I would use them more : )
I have made several pair of Lopi socks in the last couple of weeks on #6 DPN, and 6 or 7 different kinds (brands) of DPN have been allowed to knit a few rows. The needles that I keep going back to are handmade steel. Why? I do not know. They just work. I would never buy those needles. They are too heavy, too cold, and just plain ugly. (And, they rust!) Yet, when I am actually knitting with them, the only thing I mind about them is the way they click as I knit.
What do you want in a needle that you knit with; as opposed to a needle that you would buy?
I have postively hundreds of needles, many of them inherited from my grandmother and before. A good many purchased in bulk lots cheap (and also of an era 30+ years ago). I've tried so many kinds but I always come back to metal for needles and they must have a good, long point on them. The old Aero needles (that's a British brand if it's not familiar to you) are my favorite and I notice from their ads 50 years ago that their long, slender points were their selling point then.
I also like the smoothness of metal, and I even like the "clink" they make when I knit (that's probably harks back to childhood as my mother also knit with metal needles are there is something so familiar and homely about that sound).
But I like "pretty" too and grey metal needles aren't very visually appealing. My favorite sock needles are a very old set of metal double points in the most lovely metalic blue. I have some vintage metal paragon needles from the 50s that are in lovely shades - pink, yellow, blue.
I do understand using plastic for larger needle sizes (for weight considerations if nothing else), but I very rarely knit with needles larger than 4mm.
It's horses for course though, I know many people find metal hard to handle for long periods. And there is nothing so starling as tucking a cold needle under your arm if you are wearing a sleeveless top! :)
VP P.S. I managed to get some new patterns up over the weekend, if you're interested:
Good question! I make my own needles to make custom lengths, i.e., I thought 10 inches was too short for a project while 14 inches was too long, so I made a pair of 12 inch needles. So I'd have to say needles I make are as good as I buy if they are customized to a specific project. Plus, after my experience with having to refinish my bamboo DPN, I'm trying to decide if I'd be happier buying a lathe and making my own in hardwood from now on.
I'm using fingering weight to make a pair of self-patterning socks, so I needed very fine needles. I had in my KN box DPN marked sizes 1, 2, and 3 US, but the ball band specified I needed 2.5 or 3.0 mm. My 1's are 2.25 mm, and my 2's are 2.75 mm, and my 3's are 3.25 mm! I did gauge swatches with all 3, and didn't match gauge needed to make the pattern come out. Therefore, to get a more precisely sized set of DPN, I bought them. I got both the 2.5 and 3.0 mm bamboo to try out and matched gauge with the 2.5 mm.
If it's a clothing item, I want to match gauge if following someone else's pattern, and sometimes I just can't do that with bought needles.
Well I don't make dpns but here's my thoughts on the dpns I use. I have the Knitpicks metal dpns - mostly too slippery for socks for me. I have Brittany birch - I like them for plain work but for any kind of lace (I like lace on the sock legs) the points are too blunt. My favorites are the Crystal Palace bamboo - very smooth but not slippery and a nice point.
The metal needles that I see being mentioned are aluminum (If it is metal and almost any color other than gray or "silver" then it is anodized aluminum. If it is "silver", it might be plated brass (old Turbos) or stainless steel, or steel.)
Well, except for the fact that they are slipperier than I like, I do. I really love the tips, and the ease with which the yarn slides along. But sometimes, I lose a bunch of stitches, and then spend time cursing and trying to pick them up. Then I don't like steel needles.
The easy way is to live in the desert! I do not quite, but on the other hand I do not live on the foggy beach any more, either.
First, WD-40 is your friend. It is an excellent solvent that will remove gunk from your needles, and displace moisture. I wipe needles down with WD-40 to clean them after I make/polish them. The plastic needle boxes I keep the extra needles in get a squirt of WD-40 every so often, and the bamboo needle cases that I carry with me get a squirt every so often. If I was going to store a set of needles for months, I would wrap them in cotton cloth or paper towel that had been sprayed with WD-40. (WD-40 was developed to displace moisture and reduce corrosion on the nuclear missiles during the cold war, and is available in any hardware store. You may not like the smell of the stuff, but it is not very toxic, and we often use it on our salmon fishing gear because salmon do like the smell of the stuff.)
I repeat. Always put your needles away clean and dry. No finger prints.
Get some emery paper (1000 grit) and polish any spots of rust off as soon as they appear! Any spot of rust will get bigger and deeper.
Get some crocus cloth (fine) and polish your needles whenever they have a gray cloud of corrosion on them. Keep then bright and shiny.
If I am knitting with oiled wool a couple of hours per week (or more), the knitting process keeps them well polished. If I am knitting with a dry wool, I use a bit of lanolin based hand lotion, and they stay well polished. (I am a dirty, sloppy knitter so I must wash and block everything after knitting.)
When I started making steel needles two years ago. I thought rust would be a big problem. I was not at all sure that steel needles could be practical. Now, I believe that *over all* steel needles require less effort for performance than any other needle material for needle sizes less than 3 mm. That said, I have a set of 1.1 mm that insist on rusting and must be polished with crocus cloth every couple of months, if they are not used. I think there was a defect in the steel that I used to make them. Otherwise, the only time I really had problems was when I made a bunch of bamboo needle cases and did not let the bamboo dry completely before I put my needles into them. Now the bamboo is dry, saturated with waxes and WD-40 so there is no problem. (Perhaps the best use of Colonial rosewood needles, is to keep a couple in a traveling needle case, to rub against, and polish the steel needles also in the case ; )
One more potential solution. You can get desiccants that can be dried in the oven and then sealed in with an object to remove moisture. I keep one in my camera case. However, I only have one set of needles out of more than
40 sets that is a problem, so I am not going to set up special sealed storage for that one set of needles. A paper towel and a little WD-40, works good enough.
Yes, even living on a foggy beach, steel knitting needles are quite feasible.
As I read that next to last sentence, you just need to learn to curse faster. I might suggest the collected works as Mark Twain as a guide to cursing as fast as summer lighting. I have read MT several times and can now say things that will make a sailor blush faster than he can drink a shot of rum.
I also keep a little cable needle and/or a darning needle a couple sizes smaller than my regular needles for picking up slipped stitches. And, I keep a crochet hook handy for fixing where the slipped stitches have laddered down. And, if the knitting pattern, or the TV show is interesting, I put in life-lines of nylon monofilament fishing line every so often.
My last secret is that I texture the tips of my steel needles so that they are not as slippery as the plated "Turbos" or the steel needles from Lacis. That is, the commercial steel or plated brass needles are polished to a mirror f> > The metal needles that I see being mentioned are aluminum (If it is metal
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