Hurrah! I finally got round to scanning the first half of the English-language instructions, and you can now download a PDF of them here …Elna Grasshopper Instructions Part One
With any luck I’ll get the second half done during the coming week …
Oh dear. Here we are nearly into February and I still haven’t got my act together and brought this blog up to speed.
The best I can do is plead other matters still needing my attention, a general lack of enough light to take halfway decent snaps at this time of year, and a series of brainfarts which got me totally confused about the exact state of each of the Grasshoppers which are currently lurking about the place.
What I can promise you though is that sooner or later we’ll be back on track, and I’ll definitely have some Grasshopper spares for sale, including at least one good 110v motor. There’s also a couple of machines which are complete but are cosmetically challenged rather more than usual, and I guess these could be parted out if the demand is there.
We shall see. Hopefully sooner rather than later …
Elizabeth emailed me this morning and very kindly drew my attention to a wonderful ad posted by a Goodwill shop. I often think it’s a real shame that we don’t have Goodwill, or indeed Craigslist, in the UK – particularly when I see adverts like this one.
It’s for an “Elna Brand Sewing Machine in Original Box” and it’s in Indianapolis. It’s actually a Supermatic, and of course it’s not in its original box, it’s in its case. Big difference!
But whatever. “Color” is listed as “Sewing machine is mint green in color”, which is fine, but we get a feel for where this ad is headed when “Pattern” is described as “Sewing machine is mainly solid in pattern”.
“Condition” is the familiar “Sewing machine plugs in, light comes on and wheel turns”, which on Ebay at least often indicates a non-runner in much the same way as “needs plug” or “we don’t have the foot pedal” does.
But it’s the “Notes” which I’m in awe of …
“This particular sewing machine has a very strange device for making the machine work. You have to stick a long chrome-colored l-shaped device into a slot on the front of the machine and then move the rod in order to activate the machine. We think that this is maybe for people who don’t have legs or feet.”
Isn’t that wonderful?
As far as I’m aware, the accessories contained in the box supplied with the the Elna Grasshopper were as follows …
503707 Darning Plate
503773 Standard Presser Foot
503866 Hemmer Foot (earlier machines) or 503884 Hemmer Foot 4mm (later machines)
503854 Hinged Presser Foot
503852 Darning Foot
503251 Speed Reducer
503704 Small Screwdriver
503876 or 503673 Large Screwdriver
503742 Brush
503770 Right-angled Screwdriver (up to machine s/n 145600)
503893 Oil can
503882 Kerosene Bottle (earlier machines) or 503898 Kerosene can (later machines)
Also in the Accessory Box was the elusive Tray, which is part number 503847.
As time allows, I’ll try to photograph most if not all of these.
If you are new to the Grasshopper, I have a word of advice for you. Well, four words actually.
Beware of the bulb.
Depending upon when a Grasshopper was made, if you look under the arm it will either look like this …
Or it will look like this …
If yours doesn’t have that grille over the bulb, do take care if you’ve had the light on and you want to move the machine. It’s very easy to pick up a Grasshopper the obvious way and not consider that if your fingers reach under the arm far enough to touch the bulb, you will find out how hot that bulb gets.
And you will then find out that the blister takes the best part of a week to go down, however quickly you get your finger under the cold tap …
Courtesy of J C Elliott of Wyoming, USA, here is his amazing spreadsheet detailing the differences between the Grasshoppers in his collection!
Thanks J.C.!
As far as I’m aware, the Singer Featherweight 222K i.e. the free-arm version, was introduced in 1954.
That’s 14 years after Elna started production of the Grasshopper.
So where do people get this idea that the Featherweight was the first domestic free-arm sewing machine?
Let me begin by stating that I don’t consider myself to be any kind of authority where the Grasshopper (or indeed anything else) is concerned, so what follows is not necessarily definitive. It should, though, cover most eventualities, and hopefully be better than nothing.
OK, we start by lifting the access door on the bend in the arm, and noting the serial number, the first digit of which is the last digit of the year of manufacture …
Now, given that most Grasshoppers were produced between 1940 and 1952, the question arises as to whether this one is 1942 or 1952. Similarly, any serial number starting in 0 or 1 is going to be ambiguous. So how to tell?
First off, swing up the round plate which covers the access hole at the back of the column and see if there’s anything punched there like this …
If you can’t see that, get closer …
If there’s numbers, problem solved. That’s the date of manufacture, in this case March 1952.
If there isn’t, and your serial number starts with 0, 1 or 2, your date of manufacture is most likely to be 1940, 1941 or 1942.. If that’s the case, the top of the motor housing on your machine will have a hump in the middle of it and/or the part of the knee-lever linkage which comes into contact with the back of the flywheel will be square-ish, not cylindrical.
Out of the 7 machines I have here right now, the only one without a date punched on the periphery of that access hole is the one with the serial number starting with a 5, and that has to be 1945 because production had stopped before 1955.
I have seen a date-stamp inside a motor housing done with an ordinary rubber stamp, and apparently some machines were rubber-stamped with a date underneath, but whether or not those could be taken to be its official date of birth I have no idea.
It’s been ages since I posted anything.
Sorry folks, but I’m knee deep in other stuff right now and there’s a Grasshopper sitting here waiting to be parted out so I can list the bits on here.
And there’s a 110v Grasshopper motor I need to check over and get ready to list for sale.
And then I really do need to make my mind up whether the pair of oil cans sitting on the windowsill are for sale or not.
Oy vey!
And I’m not even Jewish …
Pictured above are the three different types of female plug used to connect the mains lead to a Grasshopper
The big one on the right with the porcelain insulation on the business end is for a Series 1 machine. It’s a type of plug which was used quite widely on all manner of Continental domestic and commercial equipment until the early 1960′s or thereabouts.
The one in the middle is the more common of the two all-Bakelite plugs which mate with the later flat-blade male socket used on the Series 2 and Series 3 machines. As far as I know, it’s an obsolete connector which was used almost exclusively in Switzerland, usually for domestic and office machinery, audio amplifiers, slide projectors and suchlike.
The one on the left is simply a variant of the one in the middle, with added earth contacts.
Of the three, the big one is nowadays relatively easy to find The earthed one is definitely a rarity, although it’s the only one of the three which I know is still available on the Continent brand new – at a price.
So what are these things called, apart from a female plug? Well, I’ve asked a lot of people and searched a lot of websites and I still don’t know what the proper designation is of any of them, so if you’re an authority on obsolete European mains connectors, I’d love to hear from you. I can though say for sure that despite what you might read elsewhere on the internets, a Euro C9 female plug does not fit the later type flat-blade socket on the Series 2 and 3 machines. However hard you try.
Actually, I should perhaps qualify that by saying that a Euro C9 female plug as moulded onto the end of replacement mains cables sold for Revox tape recorders does not fit, and it does not fit because although the socket blades are the right distance apart, they are too thick and too wide.
Anybody want a spare mains lead for an old Revox?
One obvious way forward if you’re stuck for a mains lead for a Series 2 or 3 is to hard-wire it to the blades of the male socket on the machine then try to get some good-quality heat-shrink tubing over them. You probably won’t be able to get the machine back into its case and it won’t look pretty, but it’ll work, and you’ll be able to unsolder the wires and remove the excess solder if in due course you do acquire the kosher plug.
The other option seems to be fitting a different connector to the machine, and I have looked into this. The existing socket removes easily enough and all that’s needed for a replacement mounting plate for a new one is a nice piece of black 3mm acrylic, but the big question is what connector do you put in it?
The ultimate problem-solver would be the ubiquitous Euro C14 chassis plug, but there’s nothing like enough room to fit one without surgery to the motor housing. After that, it seems to me that almost every readily-available socket would either foul the screws with which you mount the new plate to the motor cover (assuming you use the two existing tapped holes), or it would be deep enough to risk contact with the fan on the motor shaft.
If you’re not bothered about keeping the machine in original condition though (or capable of being readily returned to its original condition), I guess you could take inspiration from some of the “modifications” which surface from time to time. Perhaps the wackiest one I’ve seen so far involved a conversion to foot control and a vintage Singer mains socket screwed to the back of the motor housing …
