Thread: Treadle lathe lives.

Happy ending, the guy came as organised and was very happy with the lathe.
We loaded it into his little van no problems.
He makes fishing floats.
I honestly dunno how good the lathe will be for that ?
I gave him an armful of red cedar offcuts that were destined for firewood kindling for a neighbor, leftovers from another mates recycling.
I may be involved in helping the buyer get the lathe operational as he only lives 15 minutes from my place and as he’s a renderer he may well be replastering our badly cracked walls in the house.
H.

Thanks for sharing, H.

That one reminds me of my first go on a woodturning lathe 65yrs ago. That one was made from the converted base of a treadle sewing machine. It worked quite well for turning small items like yo-yos, so expect that one in the photos would be good for items like floats.

A local lad who was doing tech teacher training at the time did the sewing machine conversion, probably under the influence of Bruce Leadbeatter from the training college in Sydney. We were all from the same country town as Bruce.

That knuckle whacking chuck... ...in the photo reminds me how things were before the far better modern woodturning chucks came along.

The knuckle whacker is a Cushman 4 jaw selfcentering, Patent date of 1900 on it from memory.
The lathe may well have originally been a metal lathe.
If the lathe hadn’t sold or I had a silly low offer I would have kept it and adapted it on one of my user lathes. Small headstock spindle had no internal taper.
The tailstock taper was odd, I remachined a No1 Morse to fit.

I worked at STC with Bruce in 1980 then Michael a decade and a bit later.

Was up Alstonville just after the floods having lunch with Terry G and noticed Leadbeater lane on the GPS.

I remember Bruce describing the the old factory in the dip with the lineshaft set up.

Small world.
H.

Originally Posted by clear out

I worked at STC with Bruce in 1980 then Michael a decade and a bit later.

Was up Alstonville just after the floods having lunch with Terry G and noticed Leadbeater lane on the GPS.

I remember Bruce describing the the old factory in the dip with the lineshaft set up.

Small world.
H.

Yes, small world, and Alstonville is that small town where we grew up and where Terry Gordon now makes his wooden planes.

Bruce was a generation ahead of me, so I didn't know him that well. I knew his parents better. Our fathers worked in that butter factory together before WWII and his father made wooden caravans later on in the old factory building with the very long lineshaft still there. I spent a lot of time in his workshop there when I was a kid.

Bruce's dad 'invented' a variable speed woodturning lathe using the gearbox from a car, so inventiveness was in the family DNA.

You might find the following old family photo of interest that I sent to Terry because of his local connection with his workshop located in Alstonville and his interest in wood. The timber jinker has a load of redar cedar (you could make a lot of fishing floats from that) off our family farm there and that is my grandfather and older brother standing in front...

image001- wide.jpg

That brother, now a retired Prof of surgery in his mid-eighties, pioneered an area of transplant surgery with a number of world firsts. Alan Williams, the jigsaw boxmaker, was also from Alstonville. His father had the sawmill in the town and later supplied most of the special woods that went in the new parliament house. So, an interesting small town to grow up in.

I wonder if the knuckle wacker would act as a flywheel and help with propultion?

Originally Posted by rustynail

I wonder if the knuckle wacker would act as a flywheel and help with propultion?

The knuckle whacker would help, but I reckon that large diameter cast iron pulley on the treadle would provide most most of the momentum.

I used to go and see Bruce from time to time. I wish now I had spent more time with him, a fine gentleman. I still have one of his chucks hanging on the wall.