Twisted drive straps

[Rusty Froe]

If you look online for historical pictures of bowl lathe turning you eventually find a chap from the Mendel Housebook of 1436 (I have seen other dates for the picture).

There's a balding, bearded chap turning something substantial on a pole lathe. The thing he is turning is driven by a strap driving a mandrel.

The interesting thing is that the strap appears to be twisted at the top. Is this to prevent the strap from running over other strap loops or is it to increase friction between the strap and the mandrel?

Thanks,

Rusty Froe

[Rusty Froe]

I have just seen another version of this woodcut online. The apparent twist that I saw was caused by some form of aliasing when the image was scanned in or scaled. The original image doesn't show any twist in the strap at all.

Never trust modern technology - use a pole lathe!

[Simon Hartley]

A good thing you did a bit more research to solve the issue, or some of us would no doubt have gone off on some fruitless experimentation.

Elsewhere on this forum there is a story of someone who built a pole lathe from a picture which omitted the tool rest. Needless to say he had problems!