7X11 Treadle

Call Hern Ironworks. I bet theirs either fits, or can be made to fit.

I asked Hern the same thing. They said they don’t make a treadle for a 7 x 11. The 8x12 treadle that they do make doesn’t fit any way I can see to do it.

I ordered a Hern 8x12 OS treadle and plan to modify it to fit a very old (1887) 7x11 C&P.

Clothdog: have you compared a 7x11 and 8x12 treadle in person? I’m curious if it’s just a matter of width of the rear bracket.

Brad.

If you are (or someone you know is) an experienced woodworker, you should be able to make one out of hardwood, with maybe a few metal parts that don’t require machining. Treadles are not rocket science. There should be pictures of treadles on Google Images and Youtube. Another advantage of making a wooden treadle is that wood is comparatively cheap, and easy and fast to cut, and work with, compared to metal. Also, if you find you want to make changes in the treadle design after you have used it for a while, that is easy to do as well. If you decide you really want a metal one, you can give your wood treadle to a welder or machine shop, and have them duplicate it in steel.

If you also make your bearing block for the press crank out of wood, be sure to reinforce the cross-grain direction of the wood with bolts, because that is the weakest part. Another advantage of wood is that you can easily make the bearing block in two halves (by cutting it in half), with the bolts holding the halves together, so you can put it on the press crank easily. Just put spacer washers between the two halves, to compensate for the width of the saw kerf, so the bearing center is still round. (Wood bearings work quite well. Many older machines, including folders, had them).

Wood bearing block sounds interesting. How is it connected to the downrod?

Probably the easiest way would be to make an integral bearing/rod assembly, something like this (but with the bolts going through the wood, not on the outside of the wood, of course). Make it out of maple or oak so it will be strong. The grain of both pieces should be in the long direction. Bore the crank hole with the two pieces bolted together, and then it will be perfect.

I’m trying to upload a drawing but no luck so far. I drew it in Word with a docx file extension and am having trouble trying to get it into an acceptable file format.

OK I’m trying again. It is a .doc file so it should be OK

Still doesn’t work so unfortunately I give up. The file is bearingrod.doc, 26kb - why shouldn’t that work?

I think .doc files are treated differently than image files. You could try copying the image into Paint and save it as a .bmp or .jpg — those will upload OK.

Bob

I have the file as a PDF and as a DOC. I could open neither in Paint, but thanks for the suggestion; it was worth a try. If anyone wants to see the drawing, please email me and I will send it to you.

Open your .doc with the illustration, select it and copy it. Open Paint and paste, and your illustration should appear. Save it as a .jpg with a simple name BP likes and upload it. Should work. I’ve just been swapping images back and forth between Paint and Photoshop to make modifications. Copy and paste works across programs.

Bob

OK here we go again:

bearingrod.jpg

Hey Bob,

It worked! The humans win over the computer! Thanks so much!

This is a drawing of what would be the upper end of a wooden piece extending from the crankshaft on the press, to the treadle. The bolts would be in holes drilled into the wood, instead of being on the outside as they appear in the drawing. The left hand rectangular wood piece would be made long enough to extend down to the treadle, and the lower end of the piece would be made in whatever configuration is needed to connect with the treadle.

Drill an oil hole in the smaller piece (on the right), with enough of an angle so that the oil will flow down to the bearing area. Before bolting the two pieces of wood around the crankshaft, saturate the bearing areas on them, with oil.

This would be my way of tackling the problem, for what it’s worth……

On the 7” x 11” that I once owned I just put an long outer collar (made by a machinist) with an inner dimension that matched the existing shaft, and an outer dimension that matched the inside dimension of the existing 8” x 12” treadle clamp. He installed a grease zerk to lubricate the assembly. It worked very well, and was as solid as if factory-made.

Paul

For simple functionality, rather than full museum restoration…. Here’s a possible solution made from hardware-store bits: Uni-strut and 3/16” mild steel, plus hardware. Tools needed: drill, hacksaw (or jigsaw), file, vise, black paint.

MeatleTreadle.jpg

I like it! And, there are all those holes along the center of the Uni-strut to pick from, to secure a connecting piece which will mate with the “downrod” from the crankshaft.

I once wanted to sell wood to a bearing manufacturer he insisted that rock maple was the only wood He would use wood bearings.They are often used in conveyors. I took a tour of his plant( an old chicken coop) it seamed as though he soaked them in hot oil after he had them to size.