Christopher Schwarz: not a fancy footwork kind of guy

Christopher Schwarz tries his "hand" at foot-powered tools:

For all the girls I've maimed before: I'm sorry.

Though I have fairly good hand skills, my feet skills on the dance floor are murderous. When I dance, most people look for a wooden spoon in order to help me through my grand mal seizure.

So it should come as no surprise that woodworking machines powered by feet should be a challenge for me. I first started working on treadle machines when I took a chairmaking class in Canada. We turned all the spindles on a springpole lathe. And it took me an entire day to get the rhythm to actually work a chunk of ash into something round.

[. . .]

Roy Underhill had no problem crosscutting stuff time after time. The blade never slowed. The cuts were clean. His rhythm was slow and steady.

For me, it was like a spastic weasel pumping a Nordic Trac. Too fast. And then the thing stalled. After a few tries . . . it got worse.

He has my sympathy . . . I'm not the most co-ordinated woodworker, so I easily recognize myself in this little story.