Candace

This is a how to and photos of how to redress the pulleys on vintage Elnas. I'm by no means an expert and this is the only machine I've done. I told to give this a try by Erik on the vintageElna site on yahoo. He told me 3/4 of the Elnas he works on can have the pulleys redressed rather than replacing.

Vintage Elnas that you will buy from thrift stores, sales etc. typically will ALL have this problem. Any machine that has set unused for a month or so(or less!) will develop a flat spot. The pulley is compressed by the handwheel and will develop flat spots if not used frequently. This causes the machine to sound like a jackhammer and very loud. If not fixed it will cause damage to the machine over time, simply due to the vibration it causes. A new pulley can be upwards of $20-25 to replace and rental of tools etc. adds up. And you have to wait for shipping of the part.

First, here's my machine.