More fashion disks for my 306k

Following on from previous posts about Fashion Disks I have been researching into the Elna Supermatic and SU sewing machines and the discs that they use. I have never seen an example of one of these disks, but there is quite a lot in the web about them.

It appears that Elna started selling the Supermatic with it’s single and double discs in 1952. Singer started selling the 306 series, based on the 206 zigzag machine in 1954. It used it’s own Fashion Discs, which were not interchangeable with the Elna discs. They were however a similar format, being a cam disc to control the position of the swing needle within the width of the bight. The cam had 18 stitch positions just as the Single Elna Disk did and several of the Singer patterns appear to be exact copies of some of the Elna disks. Some were unique to Singer, and some of the Elna patterns were not used. Both manufacturers used a maximum stitch width of 4.8mm, and the disks seem to use 2.4 mm between the cam lobes of the left and rightmost stitches.

What I have done is glean all 37 Elna stitch patterns from pictures of discs off the web, and pages from manuals showing the disk patterns. As with the singer discs this was a laborious job, but I have created all 37 Elna patterns in a form I can use to create Singer Type A Fashion Disks. From these I created STL files for 3D printing the disks.

What I worked from to design the stitches

I numbered them in the range 301 to 337 based on their Elna numbers of 1 to 37. Those I could find names for I used the name. Those that exactly matched or were very close to Singer Fashion Disks I used the Singer name. For anything else I made up my own names based on what I saw in the pictures of disks and stitches.

A scan of 37 Elna Disc patters cloned into Singer Fashion Disc format

These are printed in green filament to identify them as Elna patterns, and will be tested in my 306k and a nice sampler produced as for the Singer disks.

These are the designs I created using pictures of stitches and pictures of discs. These are used to create digital pattern files used in the 3D printing facility described in other posts. Elna numerical designs

As promised above, having printed and tested the 37 discs, and corrected two that were not correct, I stitched a sampler of all 37 stitches. Stitch 1 is used around the perimeter of the sample, and discs 2 to 37 are in sequence from top to bottom.

Here is a table showing ELNA disc numbers, equivalent SINGER disc numbers and the names I have used.

Elna #	Elna Name	Singer #	Singer Name
1	Stepped Zigzag	3	Multistitch zigzag
2	Serpentine	20	Curved Mending
3	Zigzag	1	Zigzag
4	Long Scallop	4	Scallop
5	Zigzag Scallop
6	ZigZigZag
7	Fagotting	27	Fagotting
8	Banner
9	Pinacles
10	Blind Stitch	3	Blind Stitch
11	Arrows	5	Arrowhead
12	Spindle
13	StepZig	6	Domino
14	Blind Stitch	32	Blind Stitch
15	Solid Pyramid	23	Solid Pyramid
16	Wave Form	13	Solid Diamond
17	Round Pulses	19	Ball
18	Solid Scallop	8	Solid Scallop
19	Comb	28	Comb (var)
20	Square Pulses
21	Walls of Troy	12	Walls of Troy
22	Terraces
23	Zigzag Point	14	Zigzag Point
24	Crescent	31	Crescent
25	Zigzag Wave
26	Winerack
27	Ice Fall
28	Thunderbird	21	Thunderbird(var)
29	Semaphore	22	Semaphore
30	EM UU
31	Bunting
32	Diablos
33	Key	11	Key
34	Shingle	16	Shingle
35	Icicle	9	Icicle (var)
36	Mushroom
37	Batters

Elna Disc patterns translated into Singer Fashion Disc format, and sewn on a Singer 306K.

Download STL files of all 37 here https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7207856, and look at my other ‘things’ while there.