#HTE

Unexpected Design: Check Out How This Traditional Chinese Foot-Powered Lathe Works 

It’s incredible that over the centuries, folks on different continents devised different-but-similar solutions to the same problem. Both Europeans and Chinese developed foot-powered lathes to turn items on, for instance. But while I’d seen the Western design for a treadle lathe, I could not have imagined what the Chinese variant would look and operate like:

That’s in Shawo Village in China’s Hebei province, where they have been making bowls in this manner for centuries. (Sadly, they’re currently down to just “six elderly grandpas in the village [that] can use the lathe” and just one younger apprentice, the guy wearing the checked shirt in the video.)

You’ll note that the older gent in the video is turning the bowls in a nested fashion, known as “set turning,” in order to increase the yield per log.

Now let’s talk about the design of this thing! First by contrasting it with a Western treadle lathe:

The Western design is intended to be powered by one leg at a time, and the treadle is wide enough that either leg can be used. When one of the operator’s legs becomes fatigued, s/he switches. It’s also possible with this design that an operator can use just their dominant leg if preferred, though that would of course lead to assymetrical muscle development.

The Chinese design is interesting in that it uses both legs simultaneously. I am no ergonomic expert, but I would imagine that this is a more healthful way to operate it where the legs are concerned. At the very least, it certainly provides a balanced “workout,” though it was obviously not designed as a piece of gym equipment.

Also note how the cantilevered foot-levers have informed the object’s overall form factor. In order to get a greater range of motion, the foot-levers must be long, translating a short step near the pivot point to a deeper throw on the belt end. Thus the entire thing must be elevated. 

That’s pure form-follows-function, but the elevation of the design has created the happy accident of making the shavings easy to sweep up.

I like how the tool rest is integrated into the design.

Am also digging how the “sharpening station” is mounted onboard, to the operator’s right. You can see that the sharpening stone has a flat area for general sharpening, as well as a gouge cut into the left side for honing curved tools.

Laslty, I was very interested to see the system of staggered notches in which they mount the tool rest:

Overall, it’s a very clever object, and the design is different enough from the Western variant that it seems obvious that they were developed independently.

The video, by the way, was produced by the International Wood Culture Society.

http://www.core77.com/posts/56566/Unexpected-Design-Check-Out-How-This-Traditional-Chinese-Foot-Powered-Lathe-Works