We recently observed a Bose-Einstein condensate in a dilute gas of He-4 in the 2(3)S(1) metastable state. In this article, we describe the successive experimental steps which led to the Bose-Einstein transition at 4.7 muK: loading of a large number of atoms in a MOT, efficient transfer into a magnetic Ioffe-Pritchard trap, and optimization of the evaporative cooling ramp. Quantitative measurements are also given for the rates of elastic and inelastic collisions, both above and below the transition.