I haven't reported much progress on my treadle lathe because, well, I haven't made much progress. My wife and I agreed to cut expenses until we sold our old house. Two things have happened to start progress. We have a contract on the house and I have been given the starts of a treadle lathe.
We have seen this lathe before, the legend starts with Mike Davis passing off a half finished treadle lathe that was given to him to Carved Tones (Andy). Andy took it and ran with it for a while solving a few problems with the original, but it didn't really fit his needs, so he asked me if I would like it. It wasn't quite the design I was looking at, but it was a good start and I decided I could make it work for what I was trying to do. The wood is a bit rough and joints are a bit loose. I can see why Andy thought it wouldn't work for him. He has to be able to break it down and travel with it and the joints are a bit imprecise to say the least. It would probably take a while to adjust everything after every move.
For me though, it will stay in one place, so I am tempted to just make the joints permanent so they won't move much. For starters I ran a jack and smoother across some of the boards I am likely to be handling and a slight round over on some edges so I [STRIKE]won't[/STRIKE] will get less splinters.
The joints look like they were cut with a clumsy random tool like a [STRIKE]blaster[/STRIKE] circular saw. I will try to clean them up with a more elegant tool for a more civilized age, a carcass saw.
I with the house closing less than a month away, I have a bit of short term credit budget to spend on parts. I think I have found a spindle I like at Grizzly. I'll probably pick up a quill and live center for the tail stock from the same lathe. Once I have that I can figure out the space I need for the fly wheel. Hope to have pictures one I get some meaningful assembly.
Shout out to Andy (CarvedTones) and Mike Davis. I'm beginning to feel like everyone who worked on this should sign it once it's finished. I hope I'm the last to work on it.
We have seen this lathe before, the legend starts with Mike Davis passing off a half finished treadle lathe that was given to him to Carved Tones (Andy). Andy took it and ran with it for a while solving a few problems with the original, but it didn't really fit his needs, so he asked me if I would like it. It wasn't quite the design I was looking at, but it was a good start and I decided I could make it work for what I was trying to do. The wood is a bit rough and joints are a bit loose. I can see why Andy thought it wouldn't work for him. He has to be able to break it down and travel with it and the joints are a bit imprecise to say the least. It would probably take a while to adjust everything after every move.
For me though, it will stay in one place, so I am tempted to just make the joints permanent so they won't move much. For starters I ran a jack and smoother across some of the boards I am likely to be handling and a slight round over on some edges so I [STRIKE]won't[/STRIKE] will get less splinters.
The joints look like they were cut with a clumsy random tool like a [STRIKE]blaster[/STRIKE] circular saw. I will try to clean them up with a more elegant tool for a more civilized age, a carcass saw.
I with the house closing less than a month away, I have a bit of short term credit budget to spend on parts. I think I have found a spindle I like at Grizzly. I'll probably pick up a quill and live center for the tail stock from the same lathe. Once I have that I can figure out the space I need for the fly wheel. Hope to have pictures one I get some meaningful assembly.
Shout out to Andy (CarvedTones) and Mike Davis. I'm beginning to feel like everyone who worked on this should sign it once it's finished. I hope I'm the last to work on it.
