Making Your Own Treadle Lathe

This could be a good DIY prep--constructing your own treadle powered wood lathe (from No Tech Magazine):

"In the last twenty years or so since I built this foot-powered treadle lathe, I have received many requests for drawings or plans. The lathe has been used as part of our traditional woodworking demonstrations and it never fails to draw a crowd. Of course, the reason the lathe exists is because I felt a need for it as a tool. Some of the main considerations when designing the lathe were:

• Human powered -- our solar energy system was pretty small at the time
• Size -- it had to be less than 42" tall to fit into our old truck
• Compact -- since it would sit in our small shop all the time, a small footprint was essential
• Portable -- as in not too cumbersome or heavy
• Functional -- it had to perform the basic duties of a light-duty lathe
• Adaptable -- I had in mind several untraditional uses for the tool, like sanding"

Find the manual here.

The author has received suggestions and ideas to improve the basic design, which are here.