On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 14:55:44 +0100, John Schmitt wrote:

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 14:22:51 +0100, doozer
wrote:

My latest project is to build a foot powered wood working lathe but there
are a few points that I am having trouble with design wise and I would
appreciate some advice.

Have you thought about a spring pole lathe? Far simpler to make, although
the action is intermittent. The idea might be 600 years (approx) old, (and
I think rather more) but is still sound. It takes some skill, but then any
wood-turning operation does.

http://www.historicgames.com/lathes/springpole.html

for a starter. The kilt is clearly an optional thing.

Yep, in fact the project started out as a pole lathe since it is the
simplest to build but I am not keen on the reciprocating motion (if
reciprocating applies to things that spin as well as go backwards and
forwards).

The kilt is appealing though ;o)

The closest I have found to what I intend to build is this

http://homepage.mac.com/estuary1/est...otoAlbum4.html

which is similar in most major respects. I think I can improve on the
treadle system and the tensioner in particular.

Perhaps you could
find an old leaf spring ply to suit. Many years ago I and a few other
students built a crossbow with one. After we tested it and shot a bolt 3"
into a brick wall the head of craft pointedly locked it into the display
cabinet. Probably for the best, in retrospect.

I'm fairly good at working wood but I have very little experience working
metal. There is, unfortunatly for me, two bits of the lathe that I think
have to be fabricated in metal - the treadle mechanism and the head /
tail
stock.

You might have to bite the bullet and buy a morse taper centre. The other
thing that occurs is a boring old plumb-bob. I think that should be OK for
woodworking tolerances. if you include a peg on the headstock, you will
only have to use a dowel, G-cramp mole grip or similar to force the
workpiece to rotate.

I haven't given the head and tail stock as much though as I would have
liked yet as I assumed (probably wrongly) that it wouldn't be that
difficult to put something together. A morse taper may be the way forward
though.

Graham

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