AK-III Tufting Gun – Getting started

Congrats to your new AK-III!

This Tutorial is about how to finish assembeling your AK-III Tufting Gun after you received it from us. (Video at the bottom)

In your box there are the following parts:

– 9 Needles ( 65mm, 60mm, 55mm, 50mm, 45mm, 40mm, 35mm, 30mm, 25mm)
– 9 Wheels (suitable to the needles)
– Special pliers
– Air hose adaptors
– Allen wrenches

What you need on hand:
– Adjustable open ended wrench
– Air compressor 8bar

Let’s first have a look at these pieces:

As you can see on the picture each needle has a corresponding wheel (9th needle and wheel are already on the AK-III). You will need these to change the pile height ( click here for the tutorial on how to change the pile height on a AK-III)

The special pliers you will also need to change the pileheight and to go from cut to loop pile.

If you are based in Europe the airhose adapter on the machine will not fit the european standard. We go deeper into this later in this tutorial and are working to bring a solution to the shop to make things easier for you.

So lets get started.
First you want to connect the lose end of the small airhose to the gun front.
Losen the nut, and slide it on the airhose. Push the tube over the adaptor nipple on the gun and tighten it with the nut.

Losen the nut, and slide it on the airhose.

Push the tube over the adaptor nipple on the gun and tighten it with the nut.

Now you want to make sure you are able to connect your Tufting gun to your airhose. The gun comes with an adaptor that will not fit the  european standard. So there are two options to fix this.

First unscrew the current adaptor from the small airhose and slide it off. (You can even cut it off. Sometimes it’s really stuck and hard to slide off)

Now you have either this adaptor, that you can just slide on again and tighten with the nut. You can order it in the shop here.

Or you have this part and thighten it with this cable clamp. This is a bit of an unclean DIY version, but it works. (Both these parts can be bought at the local hardware store)

Now you are good to go!

Make sure your compressor is staying between 6 and 8 bar (The thicker the yarn you use the more constant it needs to be to 8 bar.

Lets thread the AK-III Tufting gun now.

Slide your yarn through the pink eyelet.

Bring it close to the wheel. Push the trigger and let the wheel bring it all the way to the needle.

Now slide into this tube and let the aircompressor blow it through the needle. Like with any other gun the needle needs to be filled enough but not too much with yarn. If you have thinner yarn use multiple threads at the same time. This might be trial and error since the yarns are so different.

Have fun tufting and let us know if you need more help by leaving a comment here or send us an email to help@tuftinglove.com