Elna Supermatic

This Elna Supermatic was Swiss made and seems to have the same degree of perfection as a fine Swiss watch. Since they are made of lots of metal, they run quite smoothly with very little vibration. Jim has trouble adapting to the Elna knee control after using his other machines with foot controllers.

Stamped on the bottom is "7 FEV 1957" so we assume that to be the date of manufacture in Switzerland.

Elna Supermatic Controls

This Supermatic, unlike our Transforma, has a compartment to insert discs which are used to produce attractive patterns.

All machine controls are contained in this area. Stitch length is controlled by the slider going up and down. The slider has adjustable stops. Stitch width is regulated using the control which moves left-right.

Elna Supermatic Bobbin Location

The image above shows installation of the bobbin. There is no bobbin case like ones used on some other machines.

Elna Supermatic Accessory Tray

The accessory tray is stored under the freearm. We were lucky in this machine in that many of the accessories were with the machine when we found it. The kit contains a seam ripper of the same color which has a broken point.

Elna Supermatic Sewing Machine

Pictured above and below are two more of our Elna Supermatic Sewing Machines. These machines may look a lot alike, but there are huge mechanical differences in them under the same skin; Jim has yet to figure out how to adjust the hand wheel on the Supermatic above.

The zig-zag feature requires the installation of a plastic cam in the compartment on top. There are many people who appear to be cam collectors (including Jim) who often get into bidding wars on eBay trying to amass a complete collection of the little plastic disks.

The machine has a free arm and the carrying case can double as a working surface as shown above. It is direct-drive and therefore does not have a drive belt. Always leave the hand wheel loose when the machine is parked to prevent a rubber drive wheel from taking a permanent set.

Some Elna machines require cams to make fancy stitches. Each is identified by a number and picture of the pattern it produces. The top picture on this page shows where cams are inserted. The pattern the cam on the right creates can be seen in the photo.