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  • From: "Jerry W. Shepperd" <shepperd AT austincc.edu>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Tools for homesteading
  • Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:28:50 -0600

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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