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Lathe


Yellow Bear
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The come up every now and then on eBay and the like but i have never seen one that hadn't spent the last 10 years on a farm yard scrap pile. Beautiful piece of engineering history; looks like you could give it a brush off and start turning out parts please please put it to good use. Such a machine should be cleaned and oiled and used to make beautiful things learn to use it and enjoy it very uncommon to find a machine of that age with a full set of accessories and accoutrements. The treadle lathe has some advantages over a modern one powered by an electrical motor; firstly when the power goes out the electric motor one is absolutely useless. Secondly because the chuck is every so slightly always speeding up and slowing down ( though this effect is somewhat eliminated by usually a big fly wheel ) tool acting on the work piece cant induce a resonating frequency, therefor when you have a lot of material sticking out the chuck of the lathe you get less chatter; less chatter = better part ( other variables come into play ). When you have a good deal of material sticking out the lathe chuck the surface finish can be affected, and you can remove or at least reduce this chatter by speeding the lathe up and slowing it down very quickly - i do this manually on my motor driven lathe by allowing the drive belt to slip by applying the brake and then letting it off. ( if anyone wants to know more about this phenomenon there is a you tube vid i can link which explains it better than i can )

my dream workshop would be to find some land by a stream and build a workshop powered by a water wheel, overhead belts flapping and the wooden bearing blocks groaning.. why? why not! 

Link about lathe chatter and the beginning explains whats going on and why, the rest is making some electronics to achieve a non - constant speed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po5VUW3I8P8

Also if you like old stuff take a look at this wind powered sawmill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6FxG3ll-lw

 

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Indeed that's an amazing find, so envious. I've mentioned before I use a belt drive treadle lathe most days of the week, twin mahogany beam bed and a flywheel that'll still be running after you've made a cup of tea. It's much simpler than yours and was made late 19th century by Holzapffel. 

Just checked May 3rd 1842

Holzapffel .JPG

Edited by Mr.C
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