Waaaaa!!!!!

So I was working on this old Elna model 62 (the ElnaSuper!) this past weekend, and was just getting to the sewing-out stage when I realized that, as is often the case with this particular machine, the needle-position selector was stuck.

The mechanism consists of a circular cam that rotates on a metal shaft, and moves the needle bar mechanism from left to center to right as you rotate the cam by hand via an aperture on the front of the machine. If you don't change your needle position for twenty years, the old oil gets gummy and sticky and locks the cam in place wherever you last left it. Ideally, one should remove the pattern stitch camstack to allow access to the selector cam shaft, pull the selector cam, degrease it thoroughly, re-lubricate it, remount it, and reassemble the rest.

That would take a couple of hours and open up the possibility of having to deal with lots of fiddly adjustments that would almost certainly come back to haunt you.

So in practical terms, the best way to deal with a sticky needle position cam on your old Elna is to take your spray can of penetrating oil, lube the everliving frak out of it, and work it loose. It's usually necessary to start out with pliers, then move to fingers, periodically applying more penetrating oil, which will eventually collect in a fragrant yellow pool around the base of the machine. You work the cam left and right and left and right and back and forth and back and forth, and after anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour later, you'll have loosened it up to the point that your standard-issue Little Old Lady can shift her needle from left to right as she likes with a minimal expenditure of brute force.

So that's what I did, and I got it freed up satisfactorily.

And I'll have you know that I managed to rub two frakking enormous blisters on my thumbs while so doing, and I just wanted to take the opportunity to whine about it.

Yuh-huh, I earned my tune-up fee for that one, you betcha.

I'm recovering just fine, thanks. Band-Aids and neosporin are answering the situation nicely, and I expect to have full use of my tactile sense back in a few days. People deal with worse.

But I have to say that there's nothing like a couple of large, uncomfortable injuries on the pads of your thumbs to make you appreciate how much you really do use them.

Thumbs. They're great.

I think they're even better than these big brains we've got, and they might have even been a worthwhile trade-off for the prehensile tails.

Maybe.

Wes hael,

N.