Category: restore

A few years back I picked up a couple of old treadle sewing machine bases. I think it’s time to start a project with one. My friend who is starting a blog (i think, lol) over at ThisRusticSoul.com should love this idea. They both need some love and attention with the usual various broken brackets and rust issues. One needs a lot more work to restore than the other, so that is the one I will start with ;)-

By the way, those of you who have known me probably recognize the garage (shop) in the pics. It feels soooooo gooood to be finally working out there again and making stuff. Maybe my slump into inactivity is finally over. So, there is the treadle I plan on making into a little side table.  Lets take a look at it problems, I’ll show the fixes in follow up posts.

The first and most prominent issue is the wheel broken off of the bottom corner. These treadle bases have little wheels in the corners of the base and this one was abused and the whole wheel and bracket is missing so it doesn’t sit flat. I’m gonna have to build a whole new bracket assembly and wheel to make this right. Time to order a chunk of mild steel.

There is a small break on the back casting that holds the sides upright. You can see the break where I mis-aligned the break just under the bolt tab. This should be a good candidate for brazing the joint, basically like soldering it back together with another metal. I havent brazed cast iron on treadles yet, so I’m curious to see how good or bad the quality of iron is in these castings. Once again, I’ll post later with the fix.

Looks like I have a lot of age and dust to clean up. I can’t wait to see this stuff all cleaned and refreshed without all the crud burying the surfaces. In the meantime, lets start the work on the top of this table. I want an old look to the top, which means I can’t just leave it as a plain flat top. I want oak for the look, since a lot of oak was used around the turn of the last century, and I kinda want an old ‘school desk’ look. So, lets get started.

Here we have 3 nice planks of 3/4″ thick oak. I spent a little time looking at grain and coloration when I went to get the wood. It has a nice open pattern and the coloration is a decent red in most of it. Now I need to fasten them together to form a top.

Three strips of oak to tie them together. The outside strips fit just inside the sides of the treadle, making a good snug fit. It left some marks on the oak as I did trial fits to make sure the runners were where I wanted them . I glued the runners before doing the final tightening on the screws, so it should all stay nice and solid.

Now it’s time to flip it back over and knock the rough spots down and make the top surface nice. There are slight variations in the wood surfaces where they meet, so I want them to blend smoothly and take out any small imperfections in the boards at the same time. Once thats done it time to add some ‘charm’ to the top.

To add charm, I’m going to use some more oak, glue, and a brad nailer. I want to run a small rail around three of the sides like I have seen on many old jewlers benches and other work tops. I like the idea because it keeps small things from falling off the table, contains small spills, and overall looks better than just slapping a plank on top of a treadle and proclaiming it a table.

I cant just slap on a couple pieces of wood and call it done either, so over to the bandsaw I go. I want the outside corners of the table to be rounded off nicely. So I rough cut the shape with the bandsaw and then go over to the belt sander to finish it off. One both sides are done I can put them on.

Now we are getting somewhere…. just in time for me to stop. I was hungry and the temp/humidity was getting to my comfy point so I quit there for the day.