I’ve blogged many times now about the incredibly useful and free 3D visualization program Sketchup (and had John Zapf on to talk about it on the podcast). A few avid woodworkers used the program to help build a wooden, bicycle powered lathe for a school in the Dominican Republic town of Punta Cana. They built the lathe so that kids at the school could make their own baseball bats.
You can find out more about the project on the Sketchup blog.
Hah, I misread the heading and thought that it was a pedal-powered “latte.” That machine I could use 🙂
I saw the picture before I read the heading and thought that it was some kind of siege engine. I hadn’t realized things were getting that desperate at the Root Simple compound!
Roy Underhill on PBS’ The Woodwright’s Shop uses traditional woodworking tools. His lath is treadle powered just as a sewing machine. It can be used by one person and takes up much less space. See here:
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/TreadleLathe.pdf