Wednesday, November 13, 2013
This pitiful
object was once attached to this ancient wheel -in such bad shape that there
was no way for it to accept the treadle bar.
It had to go.
Fred helped
me out and cut it off and then drilled the cut end of the leg out for a dowel. He mounted the right size piece of wood on a
dowel for me to turn and I took it from there.
I turned the
foot - - not perfect since I am just a beginner. Then I stained it and drilled it out for the
treadle pin, glued it in and cut it off to the right height.
Then then
wheel needed new bearings so I took care of that. It isn’t as neat a job as Fred would have
done, but the wheel spins very nicely.
I had
suspicions as to its origin and they were confirmed by Dr. Taylor. He thinks it is not American, but probably
from Ireland or Scotland.
The wheel has interesting concentric circles cut in the table and a neat sort of a smiley in the opening in the table for the mother-of-all to move back and forth.