This summer season I visited my good friend Joel Moskowitz at Instruments for Working Wooden in Brooklyn. The corporate occupies a two-story industrial house at 112 twenty sixth Road in Sundown Park, not removed from Brooklyn’s working waterfront. The storefront and showroom are on the entrance, whereas a lot of the corporate’s manufacturing takes place behind them. The constructing itself has an applicable historical past: Greater than a century in the past it housed Joshua Oldham & Sons, a producer of saws and sawmill blades.
Upstairs is Joel’s experimental area—half design studio, half analysis library, and half inventor’s workshop. It’s the place concepts drawn from previous instruments, manufacturing historical past, and modern engineering are investigated, examined, modified, and typically developed into new Gramercy Instruments merchandise.
On this go to, Joel confirmed me the corporate’s most bold undertaking but: the Gramercy Instruments Folding Moveable Treadle Lathe.
An previous machine reconsidered
Earlier than electrical motors grew to become commonplace, turners powered their lathes in a number of methods. Pole lathes used a springy pole, wire, and foot pedal to rotate the work through the chopping stroke after which return it in the other way. Treadle lathes added a crank and flywheel, producing steady rotation with out requiring both electrical energy or a second individual to show an awesome wheel.
By the nineteenth century, treadle lathes have been made in lots of configurations for turning wooden and metallic. As compact electrical motors grew to become broadly out there through the early twentieth century, nonetheless, foot-powered machines largely disappeared from industrial workshops.
Joel’s new lathe doesn’t try to breed one explicit vintage machine. As a substitute, it asks a extra fascinating query: What would possibly a treadle lathe seem like if it have been designed in the present day, utilizing trendy supplies, bearings, fittings, and manufacturing strategies?
The result’s a full-size lathe constructed round a welded aluminum body and a considerable cast-iron flywheel. It has a 13-in. swing and 30-3/4 in. between facilities, so this isn’t an indication mannequin or historic curiosity. The headstock and tailstock settle for No. 2 Morse-taper equipment, and the spindle has an ordinary 1-in.-8 thread for generally out there faceplates and chucks.
The lathe weighs 87 lb., a lot of it concentrated within the flywheel. That weight is intentional. As soon as the wheel is rotating, its saved momentum carries the work by means of the minimize and helps easy the pulses delivered by the operator’s foot.
A lathe that makes room for itself
The defining innovation is its folding body. Joel had been serious about a treadle lathe for about 15 years, however one impediment saved returning: house. A traditional lathe, whether or not powered by a motor or a foot, calls for a everlasting footprint. That may be troublesome to justify in a small store and virtually unattainable in a New York condominium.
If the lathe have been to be helpful to individuals with restricted house, it must fold. Simply as necessary, setting it up and placing it away couldn’t turn into an elaborate ritual. A machine that’s troublesome to unfold will finally stay folded.
The event course of grew to become way more concerned than Joel initially anticipated. Almost three years of concentrated work produced a number of prototypes. The staff confirmed an early model at Handworks in Amana, Iowa, in 2023, the place many guests tried it and provided suggestions. It additionally suffered a dramatic failure in its treadle meeting. That failure helped reveal how a lot pressure was touring by means of the drive mechanism and led the staff to exchange quite a few bolted connections with welded ones.
The manufacturing machine represents the work of a number of individuals. Joel originated and directed the undertaking, whereas engineer Kris Pastuszka designed the folding mechanism and plenty of of its particulars. Store supervisor Naomi Baxter and Joel Sena oversee the manufacture of the quite a few components produced in Brooklyn, {and professional} turner and teacher Alan Dorsey contributed sensible turning recommendation throughout growth.
When the work is completed, the machine folds with out being fully dismantled. Folded, it stays roughly 47-1/2 in. lengthy and 23-1/2 in. vast however stands solely about 18 in. excessive after the device relaxation and tailstock are eliminated. Wheels enable the folded machine to be rolled into storage or stood vertically towards a wall. 
The lathe is made in the US, though some elements—together with the cast-iron flywheel, bearings, and fasteners—are imported.
Studying the little dance
Working the lathe launched me to a brand new type of coordination. The foot pedal—what we usually name the treadle—slides alongside the body so it may be positioned beneath the realm the place the turner is working. That is particularly helpful when shifting alongside an extended spindle. The operator may treadle with both foot and swap legs when one will get drained.
Beginning the machine requires positioning the crank accurately and giving the pedal a deliberate downward stroke. As soon as the flywheel begins revolving, you agree right into a sustainable rhythm. At first I had to consider the place of the crank, the motion of my foot, the pace of the work, and the device in my palms. Inside a minute or two, the treadling started to really feel pure.
The closest comparability is studying to trip a bicycle or working an previous treadle stitching machine. My grandfather taught me to make use of a kind of stitching machines, so the coordination felt acquainted. There’s an preliminary second when the actions appear to compete to your consideration. Then the physique understands the sequence, and the repetitive movement recedes into the background.
The lathe has two pace ranges, chosen by shifting the drive belt between the stepped paths on the flywheel and headstock pulley. Most spindle turning is completed within the greater vary, whereas the decrease vary gives extra torque for larger-diameter work.
You need to use acquainted turning instruments, however an electric-lathe turner should alter expectations. The treadle lathe operates at a decrease pace and has solely a fraction of the ability of a motorized machine. Sharp instruments and lighter cuts are subsequently notably necessary. If the sting is uninteresting or the minimize too bold, the machine tells you instantly—not by drawing extra present, however by slowing beneath your foot.
Conventional carbon-steel and trendy high-speed-steel instruments can each be used, as can modern carbide instruments. Nonetheless, the normal chopping instruments appear particularly effectively matched to the machine as a result of a pointy, finely honed edge removes wooden with much less resistance.
Who’s it for?
At a listed value of $3,900, the Gramercy lathe just isn’t cheap. Transport will even be appreciable as a result of its packed weight is roughly 95 lb. It will be deceptive to current it as a price range substitute for a small electrical lathe.
Its attraction lies elsewhere.
This machine is for woodworkers who savor quiet work, bodily participation, and the connection between a device and the physique working it. It affords a option to expertise an earlier type of turning with out having to construct a historic replica or dedicate everlasting flooring house to it. It could attraction to hand-tool woodworkers, condominium dwellers, historic demonstrators, colleges, and turners who desire a markedly completely different relationship with their work.
Utilizing it engages greater than the palms and eyes. One leg provides energy whereas the opposite helps and balances the physique. The operator controls not merely the minimize however the power coming into the whole system. Sluggish the treadling and the work slows. Improve the rhythm and the flywheel responds. The machine by no means separates the supply of energy from the individual making the item.
The result’s each conventional and unmistakably modern. Its precept belongs to the pre-electric workshop, however its execution might solely have come from designers and makers with entry to trendy aluminum fabrication, precision bearings, standardized lathe equipment, and years of accrued data.
For me, probably the most compelling a part of the expertise was not nostalgia. It was the belief {that a} machine powered by muscle needn’t be primitive, and a contemporary device needn’t isolate its operator from the work. Joel and his staff have produced a uncommon synthesis: an previous concept made sensible for a brand new era of small outlets.
And in contrast to an train bicycle, if you step away from this machine, there could also be a bowl, a device deal with, or a chair spindle ready for you.
Particular because of my good friend Thiago Endrigo Silva for filming the quick movies of me turning on Joel’s lathe.
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