Of course you need one!! I found it interesting how light weight the machine is, relative to the 201 I finished recently for example. Different parts are iron based and others are not. The lid for instance is non iron based. The bobbin is kind of hard to get to. I don't know if you're supposed to tilt back the machine or removed the plate to get to it. I only made it as far as where to position the needle flat in the manual.