Fabricated a new treadle foot pad for my C&M Columbian #2
When I bought my Curtis and Mitchell Columbian press three years ago, the foot pad on the treadle had been replaced with a block of wood. Some time during its history the cast iron treadle had broken off and had been discarded. I had hoped to fabricate a better treadle pad, but settled on two layers of 3/4 inch oak with some sheet metal between the layers to strengthen it (so it would not keep breaking along the grain). Through some other Briar Press members, I had received photos and dimensions of the original pad. Recently I found a guy who had a computer driven, plasma cutting CNC machine to scan the photo and size it to my needs, and cut a version of the treadle pad in 1/4 inch steel. I was just planning on attaching this to the top of the wood pad as more of a symbolic “restoration” but that 1/4 inch steel cutout may be good enough to replace my wood pad. With a little grinding and painting, I might have this press nearly back to looking like it did 100 years ago!
First picture is of the original treadle pad, the second photo is of the CNC cut steel replacement.
treadle view.JPG
New CNC Treadle.jpg
Found a way to finally attach the new pad.
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Found a way to finally attach the new pad.