Hague Linkers

Hague Linkers

Well we all have one do we not – great wee linking machines and I am no exception. I own two of these machines and about a year ago, my latest model as luck would have it – tipped over and the base was broken. Anyway I put it away in the back of my shed and forgot about it for a while as I had my older model and because I understand the workings of these beasties, I was able to operate this with a wee bit more success than in bygone days. It was new when I bought this one but to be honest it was a nightmare to operate – dropping stitches in the most in-appropriate places ie like my son who was wearing his new fisherman's rib jersey on the golf course and it started peeling apart – he was not happy - this was, caused by a dropped link.

Anyway to get to the point, I was just thinking about linkers the other day when I decided to take another look at my broken machine (which I had by the way tried to glue together) and to my surprise – it had mended quite well. I am getting better with superglue now and I was able to supplement the places where the screws tie into the base with more plastic superglue. The next job was to try to operate the machine.

More and more hassle as I had obviously dropped it and even perhaps damaged the metal ie not only the case – who knows, I took it to bits and generally fiddled about with it using my operational machine as a guide. I managed to get it working but I am sure the needle was suspect.

The bane of my life, postage to France

Last week I was going to order another base from Hague but the cost of postage to France was exorbitant so I decided against it and now I am glad I did not do this, as the base seems steady enough. However we now come to the crux of the matter and that is, whilst thinking about ordering spare needles for my Hagues, and after reading the blurb on the website, it seems in this day and age, they are no longer supply needles for either of my models. I just cannot believe this - ye gods, we get needles for old sock machines nowadays and Hague are still on the go, so why not manufacture needles for their many machines.

To be honest I was considering buying a second hand model if I was unable to get my 2 running smoothly - there are tons of them on EBay etc but if the needles are no longer available – and the only recourse is to send them to Hague - which would cost a small fortune, it is a sad thing to think that most of these perfectly useable linkers are going on the scrap heap – how short sighted of Hague (or is it). I wonder how long my 2 needles will last.

So the moral of this story is check your Hague Linker serial numbers - on the old one ie the blue metal one, it is on the Hague Plate on the front of the machine and on the newer model - it is on the metal bar in front of the needle plate. Wrong serial number = no spare needles. Details on the link below.

https://haguedirect.co.uk/hague-pack-of-2-linker-needles-size-180-24/