Silver Reed SK-280 knitting machine

Silver Reed SK280 is a standard-gauge knitting machine with 200 needles, 4.5 mm apart from each other. It has punchcard reading capabilities to create patterned/textured knitted fabric. The punchcard reader is of advanced design with two levers, one of which sets the card reader to create two-times expanded (vertically) patterns.

The original Silver Reed SK-280 knitting machine was released to the market relatively late (for a punchcard machine – at that time already some electronic machines appeared on the market): in 1988.

This explains why, compared to other Silver Reed knitting machines with punchcard capabilities, Silver Reed SK280 has a more more modern look: square sockets around the drums (similar to other late-released punchcard models, like Silver Reed SK282, Silver Reed 640, Silver Reed SK700N, Silver Reed SK700)

According to the manual, there is no built-in capabilities for intarsia in this machine.

This relatively late release year of Silver Reed SK280 also explains why there are so many of them still circulating on the market in pretty good shape – although some of the SK580 clones are still manufactured today by a company in China).

Even though some of the electronic knitting machines were already present on the market. However, Silver Reed SK280 and other similar machines (like 210, 282 and 700 models) started populating the markets too as lighter and more budget-friendly machines.

Silver Reed SK280 is almost a clone of the Silver Reed SK210/Singer MemoMatic 210 model, which is described in my earlier post. However, Silver Reed SK280 was meant for the Japanese markets only judging by the all-Japanese writing on the carriage.

However, according to the manual, Silver Reed SK280 has more accessories for single motif (210 models have none).

Additionally, SK280 has a lid, while SK210 has only a styrofoam insert to keep accessories and no hard case lid (which makes it lighter to transport, by the way).