Nice lathe - nice project AB. H&H (aka Hafco aka MachineryHouse, Melbourne) has this treadle machine in its show-room. There is no belt of course but that treadle and its included eccentric chain drive and the large treadle belt-wheel/pulley are as smooth as silk and very easy to get going and keep going. Forced Womanhood Zip Files.

As on all small Drummond lathes. Oddly, Myford advertising literature has the change-over dating from 1941, yet Drummond Serial number records continue to 1943.

I thought the pics might help. From what I've been able to glean, the operator ran the lathe solo. Some lathes even had a seat so the operator could drive it with both feet.:D And stand up in the saddle when the going got tough?:eek: Also makes you wonder if there wouldn't have been some lathe equivalent of the old railroad handcars that sometimes had a crew of four working the handles. Two apprentices maybe front and back with a gaffer to run the machine? Seriously, I'd rather assumed that the guys who did it would get into the rhythm so the foot motion wasn't really conscious anymore and he could focus on the hand/eye stuff. My experience with manual surface grinders was that once you got used to whichever hand did table reciprocation it sort of carried on by itself and the meat of the task was the feed movement and watching what was happening. The machinist stood up - with one foot - usually the right - on the treadle bar/plate.

It is an acquired skill and with practice it becomes second nature as the muscles in the body and legs soon get used to the rhythm. The treadle as shown is correct as it is an up and down movement of the foot on the plate. The sewing machine type is a rocking motion with both feet with the ankles as near the axis of the rocking plate as possible. My mother had several treadle sewing machines when we were kids - she made/repaired/adjusted - and rarely bought any as we were as poor as $hit in the slums where many were worried about the rent-collector and being tipped out onto the street with what little we had. Needless to say when things 'improved??'

She got an old electric one that the Old Man had to fix - often - as Mum drove it bloody hard!! - at all hours!! When we were married - 51 years ago - my wife a UK 'Jones' 'flying shuttle' treadle machine which she really got a lot of use out of. On my next trip (Navy) to the Far East - where all the small clothes/Tailor shops had treadle machines - I bought her a Chinese machine that had a pulley form a treadle belt (no treadle) and with both a hand-wheel and electric motor optional extra. She had that machine for years - never a problem - until we bought our first of several all-electric 'Janome' machines.