Thanks all so far for the responses!
The manual is a compact booklet, 63 pages long, lots of text. Mostly I can intuit what I need to about the machine, but the bobbin is weird; the bobbin case is not the funky one as on the 282; rather, the 429 bobbin case looks more typical, but with a funny hook on it. (But no vault-like housing as on the more modern Phoenix machines. This machine, by the way, does only straight and zig zag.)
The link in Amelia's post to the 282 manual is largely helpful, for the machines are similar; however the bobbin and such still has me stumped.
The threading is also bizarre, with a funky tension spring on the upper tension dial that I can not intuit how to thread properly. I think the upper threading is similar to the other Phoenix machines; is anyone willing to send a close up photo of how to thread around the funky tension spring at the upper tension dial?
The machine is in great order, but I threaded it to the best of my intuition, and based on the diagrams in the German namual, but no doubt missing some all-important details in the text, and I caused a thread jam in the bobbin assembly (race?) which will require full disassembly. So I know I am doing something wrong.
Needle direction? Threading direction? Bobbin thread direction? Who knows...
-C.
p.s. My machine looks very similar to this one:
http://rudolfcouture.com/wardrobe/in...d=47&Itemid=39