Shirley wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 7:47 am
My g'father owned a metal peddle lathe, in latter years he attached an electric motor to it, he worked as a fitter & turner, retired at age 75.
Shirley,
By ‘pedal lathe’, do you mean a spring-pole lathe? They had a springy sapling at one end, with a cord from the top to a drive wheel at one end. The operator had a beam at foot to pull the top of the sapling down and released it to let it spring back up. The spring in the branch was used to spin the wood one way then the other. In use since about the 12th century.
A later pedal lathe used a footplate with a rod connecting to a wheel. Pushing down would start it spinning, and pushing the footplate as the connecting rod came to the top of its swing would accelerate the spin... same as on pedal sewing machines in later years.
Most likely your grandfather’s lathe was the latter.
Much easier to convert to electric power.