Elna-Grasshopper.com Elna-Grasshopper.com The only modern sewing machine

Main Menu

Card 1
Card 2
Card 3

Postcards in honor of the Feast of St. Anne - the patron saint of sewing

USA
USA
Chile
France
France
Portugal
Quebec
Switzerland

ELNA: THE ORIGINAL PATENTS (1937)

With around 900 moving parts, ELNA is lot more complex than a clockwork fuze. Dr. Casas' first patent includes all of ELNA's most distinctive features: a knee-operated rheostat, internal light bulb and motor, bobbin winder/gear reducer mounted on the motor housing, and, of course, ELNA's famous free arm.

Body fig. 1

The lever visible on the front would have operated ELNA's drop feed - this feature was deemed too complex and costly and was scrapped in the production model
Body fig. 2

The motor's distinctive grill cover and internal light can both be seen clearly in this view
Body fig. 3

A view of the gear reducer, and the bulge in the motor housing, flattened in later models
Table

Casas was also submitted US patent 2,103,091 for a treadle power table for ELNA - sadly there is no evidence this design ever entered production
Case

The familiar ELNA case was originally designed to clamp to the machine's baseplate - later cases had their own bottom which folded in when used as a sewing surface
Rheostat & gear reducer

Figures 6-8 show the form and use of ELNA's gear reducer, relatively unchanged during the machine's production lifetime, while Figures 5 & 9 detail the knee-controlled rheostat
Electrics

Though ELNA's 0.4-amp motor was unremarkable even for its time, the machine's extremely compact rheostat and clutched bobbin winder were a major step forward in sewing machine design
Movement

Exploded view of the machine's movement (feed dogs & bobbin driver) - note the feed dog drop in figure 4
Tension

ELNA's tension assembly is its most traditional and derivative component, closely related to contemporary designs from Simanco and others