treadle lathe

These are the parts not commonly found at your nearby home centers. We’ll see more of them in subsequent posts.

Some of these are available from several sources. I include links in the “Source” column for where I found the ones I’m using. Shop around. For example, that MT socket is listed by several sellers on eBay for $30-50, and I found it at Amazon for less than $10

Description	Part number	Source (mouse over for links)
1/2″ sealed bearing	KIT7478 – R8-2RS	vxb.com
5/8″ sealed bearing	KIT7886 – 1623-2RS	vxb.com
51102 thust bearing – 15x28x9mm	KIT7853 – 51102	vxb.com
#2 Morse Taper Socket	SSH-4 2 Morse Taper – 1″ Hard Solid Socket	Victor Machinery Exchange, via Amazon
Drive spur – 5/8″ spindle	Shopsmith Drive Spur	eBay – bandsaw-tire-warehouse
Live center – #2MT	Shopsmith Live Center	eBay – bandsaw-tire-warehouse
Headstock Adapter – 5/8″ to 1″ 8tpi	PSI L5818 Headstock Spindle Adapter	Amazon
Live center – #2MT	PSI LCENTLT2 No. 2MT Heavy Duty Live Center	Amazon
Drive belt – 2 strips of 2″ by 72″ leather	4773-00 Latigo strips	Tandy Leather Factory

 

Other people who have added modern bearings to their wooden treadle lathes report the bearings eventually moving around and becoming wobbly.

The solution is housing the bearing in something harder than the typical softwood we use for the lathe frames. Let’s see now… oak, ash, … ah, there’s some walnut left from a gun stock project. There’s enough walnut for the bearing blocks and for a few other small parts. Perfect.

There are a total of 4 bearings, two 1/2″ for the flywheel and two 5/8″ for the headstock. One of the 5/8″ bearings is a thrust bearing that will absorb the headstock’s lateral movement. They have outside diameters of 1 and 1/8″ and 1 and 3/8″. Forstner bits in a hand brace do the job. I drilled several holes through a block that’s a bit more than twice as thick as the bearings. Then, I sliced the block into the correct thickness. It’s a simple resawing task, but the work pieces were too small to handle well for manual resawing. So, I relented to using the band saw. After that, saw to size with a Japanese pull saw. Yes, I’m leaving them square. It’s easier than making them round.

By the way, I can’t say enough good things about my Czeck Edge marking knife. It’s really hard to mark dark woods for sawing. Pencil lines disappear. Pen lines are too fat. The marking knife makes perfect lines that are both precise and very visible.

P.S. I’ll be remaking the block for the thrust bearing. I’ve decided to double up on that one by placing the thrust bearing and a regular bearing sandwiched together. It’s a simple matter of more boring boring.

One of the hard parts of preparing the flywheel was done a long time ago, before cutting it round. The wheel rotates on a 1/2 inch axle. I drilled the center hole and then used that hole as the pivot point for cutting the perimeter on the band saw. Nice! Guaranteed center for the axle.

Here, we see the axle mounted. I used the ever popular plumbing flange on both sides of the wheel. The purpose of this flange is to connect the wheel mass to the axle. That is done with a simple 9/64″ hole drilled through the axle and a common “8 penny” nail through a pair of holes already in the flange. Simple. Snug. Done! (Oh well, almost. The axle will be cut to length later.)

Yes, there’s a matching flange on the other side of the wheel. No pin through it; all we need is one. The real purpose of that flange is to provide a bearing surface for the washers that will keep the wheel centered between the uprights. You’ll see those later.