[Homestead] Tools for homesteading
Jerry W. Shepperd
shepperd at austincc.edu
Sat Mar 1 12:28:50 EST 2008
At 01:05 AM 3/1/2008, Don Bowen KI6DIU wrote:
>I have a wheel. A friend bought a home made powered wheel. It used an old
>washing machine as the base and turned the large diameter stone. He wanted
>the base and gave me the stone. I need to build an angle iron or wood base
>for it. While repairing a certain backhoe a few years ago we replaced some
>very worn swivel joints and I threw the old ones in my tool box. They will
>be used on the pedal linkage.
I have my grandfather's sharpening wheel which is on a frame with
seat and pedals. The pedals are long boards attached at the back
with a type of hinge and with the wheel's pushrods attached to the
front of the foot pedal. It doesn't pedal like a bicycle, but more
like a treadle sewing machine, if you can imagine a sewing machine
with two treadles, one for each foot, operating in opposite sequence.
A strength of the old sharpening wheel is it is easy to hold the tool
being sharpened against the stone -- there is a metal support on
which to rest the tool, and one can't pedal fast enough to be off
balance. A limitation is the seat is fairly low and it is hard for
my 6'7" 250 pound body to sit that low while bending my knees at an
extreme angle and pedaling comfortably.
I also have a hand-crank wheel, but one needs two hands to hold the
tool being sharpened, thus it is almost necessary to have a second
person, one to crank and one to hold the tool. That second person is
not always available.
Although I have never seen one, I have often wondered about the
possibility of reworking an exercise bicycle, with the chain driving
the sharpening stone, rather than driving the front wheel. I don't
even have a good picture of that in my head, so am not going to build
one today.
I have seen pictures of exercise bikes with a generator attached, to
run a variety of household appliances. These were popular to talk
about a few years ago - I don't know how many were actually put into
use, when parents were concerned about their children watching too
much television and not getting enough exercise. Here is a website
with some discussions and plans:
http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html
Jerry S.
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