Saturday, February 25, 2012

Treadling away

Polecat, the faithful mini-bungee lathe, is by now a veteran. I have turned half a dozen tool handles; in fact I am in the happy situation of having more handles than tools! But, as always, there are clouds on my bright horizon. The treadle arrangement, i.e. the unreconstructed mop handle, is atrocious. The mop handle slips imperceptibly backwards, so pretty soon your treadle is horizontal and won't treadle. Time to do something about this.

A trip to the shop -- braving the rigors of the Alaska winter -- yielded a nice piece of 2x6 and some scrap board say 25mm, so I contructed a treadle holder. A bit of bandsaw work, a steel pin as hinge, and behold, we have a treadle. I have retained the faithful mop handle, because in the winter it is hard to find any wood. All buried under 1.30 meters of snow.
Next to the treadle is a piece of truck or car inner tube, found providentially on my back porch. This puppy, contact-cemented to the 2x6, keeps the treadle from migrating backwards. I had to cross-drill the steel pin and insert finishing nails to keep the pin from slipping out. A mere detail. Took longer to cross-drill the holes than it did to build the whole thing! Cross-drilling is no joke. It is precision work. It is all too easy to drill anywhere but through the diameter. So here's the tout ensemble:
The inner tubing works fine on my hard kitchen floor. Treadle doesen't slide. Now we can turn for real.

N.B. When I first posted this on bodger's forum, Gavin wondered about chafing. Spot on, Gavin. Cord wore out today. But I got a lot of handles out of it. Now to find a cotton clothesline. One in the shop; can't get to it. Too much snow; door blocked. The perils of bush Alaska.

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