Treadle grind stone

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Sep 29, 2015
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I don’t think I’ve ever shown this on here yet. Maybe 5 years ago now my dad found this old treadle wheel for sale in North Jersey. Was super cheap and the stone was in pretty good shape. The wheel was bought new by the seller’s grandpa who used it, then sat in his basement for decades (maybe anlmost a century at this point) until I bought it. There is a medium sized chip on the stone that he remembered causing when he was little. And some signs of someone trying to take it apart to fix some things.

The “things” someone was probably trying to fix are that the right side ball bearing socket (the one the original pedal bar is attached to) is bent. Have some comparison shots of the left side (the one with a cable me and my dad had to rig up).


And of course the bolt that holds the bent side in place is broken off and it looks like someone then tried to beat that side off the axel with a hammer.

The bend is enough that whenever the right side (bent side) pedal get to its highest point in its cycle, it causes the wheel to twist to the right slightly.


I use the wheel a bit for sharpening machetes and axes. It makes a really nice toothy edge and is surprisingly easy to use. I’ve been wanting to use it for the primary bevels on the kiridashi I make but the wheel twisting every half turn makes them come out too uneven. I’m considering making a tool rest I can clamp onto the body when I’m doing primary bevels but want to fix the twisting/tilting issue first.

What’s my best way of going about getting that bent side disassembled so I can straighten it out? I have a tap and die set (never used it before), a small flux core welder, and an Ace hardware half a mile from my house. So I’m sure we can figure something out with what I’ve got on hand. I just don’t want to go damaging any of the parts more than whoever tried before.


Kevin
 
Using a sharpener for primary bevels is an exercise in frustration. Use the belt sander, a disc sander, a bench wheel, or files.

The left right movement is a special feature not available on most treadle grinders. You might want to true the wheel to lessen the issue.

I have one on of those my front porch, along with an antique handle pump/flywheel/blower forge (and a lot of other 100+-year-old antique farm stuff). I have never seen one that ran perfectly true.
 
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That is really cool to see.

A water-dipped treadle sharpener about that size (wood frame) was what I was first taught to sharpen on in my Grandpa's sharpening shop. I got to do scythes, axes, repair shovels and such before I was allowed to sharpen customers knives. This brought back a lot of memories because it was what kindled my desire to work with my hands that led me to knifemaking eventually. Thanks!
 
Yup, I started sharpening axes and scythes, and sickles back in the 60's at the scout camp on one with a drip can hanging over it. You got pretty wet after a while.
Here is my front porch. Besides the treadle wheel and hand pump forge, there are three or four old scythes, a wagon wheel, old milk cans, old pitcher pump, some whippletrees (plow harness arms), and other stuff from the farm. Bonus points for who knows what the odd thing by the forge is (Not the Guard Duck), and what the metal can under the flower post is.

Fun trivia:
A whippletree is also called a whiffletree or whiffentree. An old tool for teaching scouts in England to follow a trail was called a Whiffenproof or whiffenpoof. It is a log with nails sticking out that is pulled by the trainer, and the scouts follow the trail. The fewer the nails the harder to follow the trail. An old whiffentree was often handy and easily attached to a rope for pulling, and thus the name. It made a simple drag line on the ground, and sometimes no mark at all. The mysterious whiffenpoof animal that was tracked by day was similar to the mysterious Snipe that Scout Leaders would take new scouts out to hunt at night in Snipe Hunts.

While it became the training method of the British and American Boy Scouts, it was initially the brainchild of a true scout - Frederick Burnham - who was an Indian Scout in the late 1800's American west. Burnham then went to Africa to fight the African Wars with the British Troops and became Britian's Army Chief of Scouts. While in Rhodesia, he worked with Baden-Powell, and taught him his woodcraft skills and tracking techniques. He helped Baden-Powel form the idea of the Boy Scouts, which Baden-Powell took back to England and then to America.

The term whiffenproof/whiffenpoof was unique to training scouts until the name was then used by the actor/singer Joseph Crawthorn in the 1908 operetta Little Nemo. He was signaled by the director to stall for time while they fixed part of the staging that broke. He ad-libed about a strange and mysterious animal he had once tracked called "the whiffenpoof". A Yale glee club member was watching the operetta and when he went back to Yale. He formed an A Capella group and named it The Whiffenpoofs. They then named their theme song The Whiffenpoof Song ....and the rest is history ... "We're poor little lambs who have lost our way, Baa, Baa, Baa ...."

Extra Credit trivia - One of the early members of the Whiffenpoofs was Cole Porter
Porch 6.jpgPorch 5.jpgPorch 7.jpgPorch.jpgPorch 1.jpgPorch 2.jpgPorch 3.jpgPorch 4.jpg .
 

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I guess I keep the treadle for just sharpening then, I’ll take your word for it not being worth the hassle for a primary grinds. From the very little time I spent attempting in the past I just couldn’t get it to look halfway decent

I thought it was going to be a lot harder to use when I first got it. My only experience with any kinda wheel for sharpening was the Tormek we had in our wood shop in high school. But the treadle really is easy to use, fast too. Gives me even more excuses to mess around around with my machetes too
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith is that one under the forge an ice saw? I remember seeing similar saws with tags saying they were for ice blocks in antique stores back home. I don’t remember what the handles on them looked like though. My dad collects old woodworking tools, has dozens upon dozens of old saws, chisels, planers. We’ve been all over NJ, PA, and NY looking for woodworking tools. That’s actually how I first got into forging. Seeing all the anvils and stuff in those antique stores I decided to save some money and start collecting what I needed when we’d go out looking for tools.
 
Cool farm-rivet forge, Stacy! Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith
I've got one out under the carport that I started on. It's a bit different than yours, but close. I'll have to dig it out of the mess and get a foto. Right now my unused anvil sits on top. To any in my area - there's a 116 pound Peter Wright with an absolutely beautiful top sitting out there, waiting for a new bladesmith to come along and take it home.
 
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That's the first time I've ever heard those called whippletrees, Stacy Apelt. I've always heard them called swingle (or single) trees. Those long enough to hitch a pair of mules or horses to were called double-trees.
 
Jaxxon - yes, swiffletrees, swingletrees, singletrees ... there are many forms of the name. Most likely from people only hearing the word and passing it along as they heard it. I've got singles and doubles sitting all around the yard and shops.

They used mules and horses on the farm from 1900 to WW2, and after the war used Claud's severance pay to get a tractor.
From around 1905 till 1910, Miss Agnes used to ride one of the mules to school in Surry, VA and had to get it harnessed and ready for work when she came home most days. If there was lots of plowing going on, she only went to school a half day because they needed the mule to plow. The school actually shut down during plowing and harvest to allow the students ... and the horses/mules ... to work on their farms with the family.
Around 1910, a family up the road sent their kids to school in a buggy. Miss Agnes would stand by the road waiting for it to come by and hitch a ride on the back to school (the source of the term "hitch hiking"). The county didn't start a school bus service that included Spring Grove until the 1920's ... after she finished school.

Fitzo - nope, not an Ice saw ... but you are close. It is a hay saw for cutting apart bales of hay when feeding the livestock. An ice saw has big, hooked teeth and looks like a zombie slayer.
 
Regional pronunciations can be interesting.
Bodock wood = Bois D’arc = Osage Orange.
 
Cool story about the mules, Stacy. My father was raised a dirt-poor Depression farm boy. He told stories of plowing behind two mules as a boy. He always insisted they were the two best, most loyal friends he ever had. They are pretty cool animals.
 
Good old mule story/joke from the 30's:

A city feller was driving his car down a muddy country road and slid off into the ditch. He was haplessly stuck, but saw a farmer plowing his field with a mule. He called out the window to the farmer, and asked if his mule could pull him out. The farmer just nodded and unhitched the mule. He hooked the plow chains to the car bumper and told the mule to pull. The mule just stood there. He told her again, "PULL", and the mule just stood there. The city feller leaned out the window and said, "I thought you said your mule could pull this car?" Th farmer just nodded and walker to the woods and brought back a big stick. He whacked the mule over the head and the mule immediately pulled the car out of the ditch. The city feller said, "Thanks for gettin' me out, but I don't approve of you abuse your mule?" The farmer said, "I didn't abuse Molly, I just was getting her attention."

Another farm joke that most city folks don't get:
Clem didn't know what he would do for a living once he was 16, so he asked his Pa, "What should I do to make money?" Pa, told him that raisin' mules was good money ... So Clem went out and bought two mules to start his mule farm.
 
Not to be confused with roadapples ... which are a very different thing.

Anyone play road apples when they were a lad?
 
Osage orange:
  • Hedge
  • Hedge-apple
  • Yellow-wood
  • Bowwood
  • Osage apple
  • Bodark
  • Bois d’arc
  • Mock-orange
  • Horse apple
  • Prairie hedge
  • Naranjo chino
 
Yup, probably go right over the heads of many folks. It seems simple enough to breed a John and a Molly.

My Scottish ancestry grandmother was born and raised at Buttler Hollow Farm in the Ozarks in Seligman Missouri. Her father (Robert Burns Elliott) and grandfather (James Robert Elliott) were mule breeders. She worked the mules from around age 6 until she went to nursing school at age 17 in 1910.
All my farm stuff isn't from that farm, though. It is from Idlewild Farm in Spring Grove, VA. MY elderly friends Claude and Miss Agnes Menzel were childless, and I started going up to help run the farm as a teenager in the 1960's. Handling the cows, horses, plowing (with a tractor), and other heavy tasks that were difficult for the old couple. When I got married, I still went up often. As I had children, one of the first trips out of the house was to the farm to show off the new babies. After they passed. I brought home some stuff from the barns and sheds. I wish I could have taken more.
 
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