There are three basic elements of knitting: needles, cams, and sinkers. There are three types of needles - latch needles, spring-bearded needles, and compound needles. Cams convert rotary motion into reciprocating motion and come in two types: engineering cams and knitting cams. Sinkers perform three functions: loop formation, holding down loops, and knocking over loops. Sinkers are divided into three groups based on their functions.

1. BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology
Experiment No :03
Study on basic elements of knitting.
Submitted to
Md. Mahbubul Haque
Sr Lecturer of BUFT
Submitted by
Jobair Ahmed Twaha
ID : 131-54-0-135
KMT-2
Basic elements of knitting

2. There are three basic elements of knitting,such as
1. Needle
2. Cam
3.Sinker
The Needles:
The needles are most important stitch forming elements.They are displayed
vertically up and down and are mounted into tricks or cuts of knitting cylinder.
There are three types of needles namely:
 Latch needle
 Spring-bearded needle
 Compound needle
 Latch needle: It consists of a hook portion at the top and a latch riverted
at certain distance from the needle head. Latch needles are given sliding
movements in individual grooves called tricks of cylinder.The latch
swing freely and the stem is a straight portion with a protruding butt.The
latch needles are self acting,and
requires only previous loop on the stem and do not require any outside
agency to close hook.
 Spring-Bearded Needle: This needle consist of a top hook curved
downwards with a finished tip and the downward continuation is called
beard. A small eye groove is cut in the stem, to recieve the point of the
needle beard when it is closed. It does’nt require latch, it is finer in cross
section and more number of needles per unit space can be and hence finer
machine gauge can be achieved. It requires additional element to close
the needle which is done by a presser.The bearded needle produces
superior knitted stitches than the latch needle.

3.  Compound needle: The compound needles are used in weft and warp
knitting machines. In contrast to standard spring-bearded needles and
latch needles the compound needles consists of two separate parts- the
stem & the sliding latch. At the top of the compound needle stem there is
a hook. The two parts rise and fall as a single unit but at the top of the
rise the hook moves faster to open and at the start of the fall the hook
descends faster to close the hook. The compound needle stem can be
made of a U- shaped steel wire or of a steel tube. The sliding latch is
made of a steel wire.
The Cams :
Cam is the second primary knitting element. The cams are the
mechanical devices which convert the rotary machine drive into a suitable
reciprocating action for the needles or other elements.
There are two types of cams:
 Engineering cams
 Knitting cams
 Engineering Cam : It is circular cam. This circular engineering cams
indirectly control the motion of bars of elements which move en masse as a
single units in cottons patent to and warp knitting machine. They are
attached to a rotary drive shaft situated parallel to and below the needle bar.
In warp knitting machines, four types of cam drive have been worked:
I. Single acting cams
II. Cam & counter cams
III. Box cams
IV. Contour cams
 Knitting Cam : The angular knitting cam acts directly on the butts of
needles or other elements to produce individual or seriatim movement in the

4. tricks of latch needle weft knitting machines as the butts pass through the
stationary cam system or the cams pass across the stationary tricks.
There are three groups of knitting cam:
I. Knit Cam
II. Tuck Cam
III. Miss Cam
The main parts of a knitting cams are-
 The Raising cam
 The Stitch cam
 The up throw cam
 The guard cam
The Sinkers:

5. The sinker is the third primary knitting element. It is a thin metal plate.
The functions of sinker are given below:
 Loop formation
 Holding-down
 Knocking-over
According to these functions the sinkers are also divided into three groups-
 Loop forming sinker
 Holding-down sinker
 Knocking over sinker
The first function of sinker is loop formation. The main purpose of sinker is
to sink or kink the newly laid yarn into a loop as its forward edge or catch
advances between the two adjoining needles.
A second and more common function of sinkers on modern machines is to
hold down the old loops at a lower level on the needle stems than the new
loops which are being formed & prevent the old loops from being lifted as
the needles rise to clear them from their hooks.
The third function of the sinker – as a knock-over surface-where its upper
surface or belly supports the old loop as the new loop is drawn through it.
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