Oh, sure you were going to edit out the fireplace! You just wanted to make me jealous. Just wait a few weeks and I'll get even, lol. Patti in California

I love your informative and brighteyed posts. Here's one of two resident 21's here. This is a 110v "Viking" import; the other is a 220v Euro model which I run off a little converter (praying each time that that oddball 220v light doesn't burn out.)

These are a pain to work on - the kookie internal (oil soaked drive belts, the fussy cam drive, the lurking plastic, the motor baking away in its own little oven - but it's one of my wife's favorite machines. I do sort of admire the chutzpah of that two-speed transmission, which is a manual transmission, though, notwithstnding all that talk of "automatic"!


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Mod please delete this inverted monstrosity of a post. Tnx.

Here's a proper edit of my earlier catastrophe.

I love your informative and ardent posts. Here's one of two resident 21's here. This is a 110v "Viking" import; the other is a 220v Euro "Husqvarna model which I run off a little converter (praying each time that that oddball 220v light doesn't burn out.)

These are a pain to work on - the kookie internal (oil soaked) drive belts, the fussy cam drive, the lurking plastic, the motor baking away in its own little oven - but it's one of my wife's favorite machines. I do sort of admire the chutzpah of that two-speed transmission, which is a manual transmission, though, notwithstanding all that talk of "automatic"! Then there's that otherworldly radioactive pea green metallic paint, so bold given the almost somber H greens of a few years before. More chutzpah, not a quality we stereotypically look for in our Swedes! I like this green a lot; it reminds me of "Rappaccini's Daughter," my favorite Hawthorne story. (That's a stretch, but this isn't for a grade, right?)


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Come to think of it, this green reminds me a little of the original green Fiestaware, with a uranium-based glaze pigment, often alleged to be worrisomely radioactive. Same time period too. Hmmm.

In a few weeks here, it might get above freezing. When it does, we get mud, then black flies, then we work like crazy to get ready for the next winter. New Englanders love this stuff. It's a disease, I guess. I remember talking to a lady once who had grown up with woodstove heat, and without electricity for the most part. Commenting on her son's home with its central heating, she said. "The heat is fine, I guess, but where do you go to get warm!" Dogs understand this, and cats. People, with their hypertrophic frontal lobes, often don't. You obviously, though, do have an eye for heat!

LOL, they are not the easiest for a DIY fixup. You have the version with stitch length lever, and it's less prone to hickups than the knob version with push button reverse in center. It works fine, but if it get's stuck it can be a lot of work to unstick it, and cumbersome to get at the backside of it during the process. And yes, they can be over oiled, it's a joy to find one with a clean inside, often completely dry. (an Elna Supermatic I had the bottom of the freem arm swimming in oil). The one I sewed on wasn't bad at all, motor ran well, balanced stitch, the only stubborn issue was the stitch selection mechanism. It needed a lot of attention to behave again, and needed oil frequently to stay that way. I guess they are not a favorite to fix up once neglected, but up once up and running, mine stitched away happily, flat felled seams on bull canvas were no problem. I have to admit, my least fuzzy zigzagger is a Bernina 730. It's been in for service a couple of times in its' life.

Automatic must have been a fancy thing back then. A lot of models were added this flavour in their name; automatic, supermatic, novomatic, dialomatic, ultramatic,... There were hardly any one step buttonholes, but as long as a mechanism would click in place and do it's job with mechanican simplifications I guess it's automatic. Doing it manually would mean shifting the fabric back and forth in stead of a swing arm, replacing a stitch pattern cam with a a lid and screw involved. A four step buttonholer helps with getting all the zigzagging in the right place, but it is of course possible to do this on any swing arm machine with just the basic zigzag.

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More green for you all.
Elna's aren't fun to service and often have flat spots on their rollers. The "Elna Growl" is known worldwide.

Automatic in cameras of the era meant the lens would stop down right before the shutter opened. Way before auto exposure and auto focus.

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My GF used this Green machine a lot over the holidays.

I love the green machines, I should take a pic of my 1950s Phoenix. My Elna Supermatic is the beige and tan version, pretty much identiacal to the green. I am the average amateur when it comes to DIY fix, and I managed fine with my Supermatic; I was very lucky and someone made me a metal pulley replacement for the motor. It's a nice machine, runs fine and low noise, except for when I floor the pedal. It get's nosier, but still within reason. For a domestic model it's speedy, much more so than many current computerized models.