About a month or so ago I got the notion that I wanted to buy and restore an antique CSM to go along with my NZAK. I settled on a Legare 400 as the machine that I wanted, and I watched eBay for a while (which is likely the most risky place to shop for one, but hey, that’s part of the fun, right?) and finally found one I liked… and two weeks ago, bought it. I’ve been anxiously waiting since then for it to arrive (note: it was shipped right away, USPS has been doing who knows what with it for the past 13 days since it left Canada).

It arrived today!

Since everything looked like, well, really REALLY good, I decided that instead of taking it apart right away, I’d throw some needles in, and see what it could do.

Wow. That can’t be… it’s casting on perfectly.

Not only that, iIt isn’t dropping a SINGLE stitch. I’m almost disappointed - I wanted a challenge, right? I wanted a machine that needed a bit of work (and not just some minor cleaning). This isn’t challenging if it knits perfectly!

I swapped out the yarn carrier for a slotted one from Roxanne (which I’m not sure about quite yet - I need to get a washer or something to use as a spacer, if I leave it as is, it will hit the tension dial when knitting heels and toes), and just kept cranking away. I’d be tempted to say that this machine knits better than my NZAK… it’s very smooth.

The only problem with it? A tiny chip off the 72 cylinder… which happened during shipping (it was packed very well though, so I’m not sure how it happened, other than USPS having it for 13 days, doing who knows what to the box it was in).

So there it is.. my new to me, beautiful Legare 400. All I have to do is clean it, but it appears to be complete, it knits like a dream, and I’m quite pleased with my “gamble” on eBay. I’ve yet to try the ribber, but it seems to be fine as well.

Amazing