Tricot Machine Buying Guide: Gauge, Guide Bars and Real Speed

August 29, 2026

A tricot machine is a warp knitting machine with a single needle bar, built to turn a warp sheet into light, flat, dimensionally stable fabric. Three decisions settle what it can actually produce for you: the gauge, the number of guide bars, and the speed you can hold once the first two are fixed.

Work through them against your yarn and your finished fabric before you look at a single model number. Every one of the three is easier to get right on paper than to correct after installation.

Tricot or raschel: settle the family first

Tricot machines run one needle bar and are built for fine, closed, lightweight goods. Britannica’s entry on the tricot machine describes fabric typically under four ounces per square yard, knitted at fine gauge on a single bar of spring-beard needles, with patterning capacity coming mainly from how many guide bars are added.

Raschel machines take the other road: coarser gauges, heavier and more open structures, many more bars, and lower running speed. Light, closed, uniform across a wide width points to tricot. Open, dimensional, lace or netting points to raschel, which is a different machine rather than a different setting on the same one.

If you are still mapping the whole family, our overview of warp knitting machine types covers the neighbouring builds.

Gauge: read it off the yarn, not off the catalogue

Gauge is the needle density of the bar, and it is the one parameter you cannot renegotiate after installation. Published ranges from technical literature give a usable starting frame:

• Around E10 for coarse spun yarns, where needle spacing has to clear a thick, hairy yarn body.
• E20 to E24 for textured filament fabrics, the common band for a large share of apparel and technical goods.
• E28 and E32 as the most versatile everyday gauges, which is why they turn up on so many installed machines.
• 28 to 44 npi is the fine band that ScienceDirect’s tricot overview associates with lingerie and apparel work on two guide bars.

Those ranges come from technical reference sources (ScienceDirect’s tricot machine topic page and standard warp knitting course material), not from a single machine’s rating plate. Use them to bracket your requirement, then confirm the exact gauge against a yarn sample and the fabric weight you have been asked to hit.

The practical warning: a gauge chosen one step too fine will run your yarn at the edge of the needle spacing, and every knot, slub or oiling variation in the warp turns into a stop. A gauge chosen too coarse gives away the surface closure you were buying tricot for in the first place.

Guide bars: what the second, third and fourth bar buy

Both Karl Mayer and Vandewiele describe the choice between two, three and four guide bars as a matter of end use and fabric structure. That is correct, and it is also where most published guidance stops, because it says nothing about what the extra bar costs you in threading labour and speed.

Those application splits are our own configuration data, published on the Grand Star Tricot Machines page, where the line is listed as GS-HKS2, GS-HKS3 (EL), GS-HKS4 (EL), plus a jacquard bar version GS-KSJ 3/1 (EL) and a weft insertion version GS-KS-MSUS (EL).

The cost side is threading and changeover. Every added bar is another full warp to creel, thread and tension, and another set of laps to correct when a pattern is being dialled in. A mill running one fabric for months amortises that easily. A mill changing articles every few weeks feels it on every changeover, which is the honest argument for buying three bars rather than four when the fourth bar serves only one occasional article.

For the sportswear case specifically, we have already broken down the three-bar decision in a separate piece on choosing a warp knitting machine for sportswear fabric.

Speed: why the finest gauge and the highest rpm do not arrive together

Figures above 2,000 rpm circulate publicly for tricot machines and are quoted by suppliers in this market. Treat that as an industry headline number rather than a promise for your configuration, because it describes the simplest setup running the friendliest yarn.

Two things pull the achievable speed down from any headline figure. More guide bars mean more mass being shogged and more lapping motions to complete inside the same course, so the machine has less time budget per revolution. Finer gauge means finer elements and tighter working clearances, so vibration, yarn faults and let-off irregularity that a coarse machine absorbs become stops on a fine one.

The useful question to ask a vendor is therefore never what the top speed is. It is what speed this gauge, with this number of bars, held on this yarn, over a full shift, and at what stop rate. A number without those four qualifiers describes a different machine than the one being quoted.

A short selection checklist, and where it stops applying

If your fabric is a lightweight, closed, plain or lightly patterned construction from filament yarn, then two bars in the E28 to E32 band is the default starting point, and adding bars will cost you speed for patterning you are not using.

If your fabric needs stable stretch, an engineered face, or pile height, then plan on three or four bars and accept the lower ceiling on running speed and the longer changeover as part of the purchase.

If you are running coarse spun yarn, then the gauge band drops toward E10 and much of the fine-gauge speed discussion above stops applying to your case entirely.

This framing does not apply to open netting, heavy geogrid, lace, or spacer constructions. Those belong to raschel and double needle bar builds, and forcing them onto a tricot specification produces the wrong machine at the right price.

Before an enquiry, have four things written down: yarn type and count, target fabric weight per square metre, working width, and the number of different articles the machine has to cover in a year. That last one decides the guide bar count more often than the fabric does. With those in hand you can compare our tricot warp knitting machine configurations directly, review the wider machine range at grandstarcn.com, and send the four numbers to our team through the contact page so the reply addresses your fabric instead of a generic specification sheet.

Frequently Asked Questions

What gauge tricot machine do I need for my yarn?

Bracket it by yarn type first. Published technical ranges put coarse spun yarns around E10, textured filament fabrics at E20 to E24, and E28 and E32 as the most generally useful gauges, with a fine 28 to 44 npi band associated with lingerie and apparel work. Confirm the final choice against a yarn sample and your target fabric weight, because gauge is fixed at purchase.

Is a 2-bar tricot machine enough, or do I need 3 bars?

Two bars cover plain and lightly patterned lightweight fabric and run fastest, which is why most tricot machines are built that way. A third bar is what you need for stable stretch, denser faces and the automotive, upholstery and sportswear articles listed on our Tricot Machines page. Buy the third bar for articles you will actually run, not for ones you might.

How fast does a tricot machine actually run?

Speeds above 2,000 rpm are quoted publicly in this industry, but that headline describes the simplest configuration on cooperative yarn. Adding guide bars and moving to finer gauge both reduce the achievable figure. Ask any vendor for the speed held at your gauge, your bar count and your yarn over a full shift, together with the stop rate.

What is the difference between a tricot machine and a raschel machine?

A tricot machine has a single needle bar and is built for fine gauge, lightweight, closed fabric, typically under four ounces per square yard. Raschel machines run coarser gauges, more guide bars and heavier or more open structures such as netting and lace, at lower speed. They are different machines, not different settings.

Can I change the gauge on a tricot machine later?

Treat gauge as fixed when you sign the order. Guide bar patterning can be changed through the pattern arrangement, but needle density is a property of the knitting elements and the bar itself, so a gauge change is a machine-level rebuild rather than an adjustment. This is why the yarn count discussion has to happen before the purchase, not after.