I recently came into posession of an old treadle lathe, thanks to Douglas Caprette (thanks, Doug!).  It's not a commercial lathe, but was made in someone's shop.  Doug got it in southeastern Pennsylvania, and theorizes that it was built by an Amishman.   It also appears that it was built by a left-hander, as the flywheel and headstock are on the right rather than on the left as is customary.

Here's a front view of the whole lathe.  The shiny vertical thing is actually a ruler, which I placed in the picture to give an idea of the size.  Unfortunately, it seems that metal rulers aren't a good choice for this, as they reflect the light and appear as a white bar with no markings.  :-(

At any rate, the lathe is about 5 feet long, 3 feet 4 inches high, and bit less than 3 feet front to back.  The maximum distance from headstock to tailstock is just shy of 3 feet.

The front way is broken in the middle, right at a knot (bad choice of wood by the original builder).  The front board of the treadle is also cracked, although that isn't very evident in this photograph.


This is the working end of the lathe, showing the headstock and pulley, toolrest, and flywheel.  The cracked board in the treadle is much more obvious in this shot.  One interesting feature is that the ways are attached to the uprights with flat-headed carriage bolts, something I've never seen before.


This is the flywheel end of the lathe viewed from the outside.  The smaller of the two wheels is actually a metal wheel with five curved spokes, perhaps from a piece of farm equipment or something.  The bearings are in this metal wheel, and the wooden parts of the flywheel are attached to it.
 


Here's a closer view of the inside of the flywheel.  Note the pieces of scrap metal and machinery pieces that are bolted to the flywheel for weight and balance.

Here's a closeup of the headstock pulley, which also shows how the belt is joined.  The belt is one inch wide leather, and the joint is attached with a hook and hinge-pin device.   There appears to be a couple of types of these.   I think the one here is made by Clipper.  Dave Tardiff has one of the tools used to attach these "laces" to the belt, and he graciously allowed me to post some pictures of the Clipper Belt Lacer.   Another similar device is called "Alligator Laces", but I haven't actually seen any of these.
 

Here's a closeup of some of the treadle assembly.  Note the "hinge" bar, which is carved so that the left end is more or less round and the right end is rectangular.

This is Rupert, the primary shop cat, checking out the lathe.  It isn't a very good picture of him, but it's rather difficult to get cats to pose.  He's much more interesting from the front, with white markings on his face and belly.   His brother Louie, the secondary shop cat, refused to pose at all.

Rupert and Louie are just over a year old, and delight in tormenting  Spike, the 14-year-old cranky female cat.   I sometimes think she secretly finds the kittens amusing, but she won't admit it in front of the humans.


 

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