OK, having started our general look at the Elna No.1 in the last post, we can now move on to the case.

It’s a very neat pressed steel fabrication, and the picture above shows it open as it looks when the machine has just been lifted out together with the mains lead, which wraps round those two thingies with the green felt on them seen at the top of the lower half of the case.

Above is the bottom of the case as it is normally, and below we see it with the front half of the bottom hinged up.  That’s the first step in transforming the case into the worktop, worktable or whatever you like to call it.

This picture also shows the older-style mains plug which is used on the Series 1 machines and was replaced by a different all-Bakelite plug on later models.  Funnily enough, it’s a lot easier to find a replacement of this earlier plug than it is to find one of the later flat-blade ones, but more about the vexed issue of mains plugs another day.

Anyhow, having turned that bottom flap up, we can now lay the case down like in the picture above and flick up those two little clippy things which you can just see on the very right-hand side of the top of the case.

That lets us turn the rigt-hand top over like turning a page in a book, et voilà – a smooth green work surface!

Now it’s just a matter of sliding the machine itself into place (with or without the accessory box), lowering the knee-lever, and swinging the knee-lever extension down before plugging in the mains lead and away you sew.

Looking at that picture, you could be forgiven for thinking that with all that metalwork, and particularly with that hinge where it is, it all looks a bit iffy from the point of view of snagging material.  Yes, it does look a bit that way, but in practice it isn’t iffy at all because everything’s either rounded off or it has a smooth finish to it.

This particular case will benefit from a judicious bit of bending and twisting in places when I get round to it because it doesn’t quite sit as flat round the freearm now as it did when it left the factory 66 years ago, but that’s easy enough to sort out.

OK … that’s the case done, so I guess we just need to take a quick look at bobbin-winding and threading to complete the introduction.  That’ll be coming up next.