A fellow club member had a W.F. & J. Barnes Velocipede and I was allowed to turn on it once. In the excitement I had a runaway treadle, lost my balance, and toppled off the seat. For my carelessness I was banned from using the Velocipede thus ending my foot powered turning career. Ever since, I have been relegated to using electric motor powered lathes.
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There is a serious safety lesson here. Way back then safety was entirely the responsibility of the machine operator and machines were expected to be dangerous. The unguarded drive belts are an obvious unnecessary hazard, but a not-so-obvious hazard is what got me in trouble. The seat sits on a slender steel rod held in place with a wing nut. The wing nut came loose, the seat came loose from the steel rod, and as I fell the steel rod rammed me right in the middle of my chest. Fortunately, my sternum was tough enough to prevent serious injury, but the lathe owner who witnessed the whole calamity thought that I had been impaled. I obviously used up one of my nine lives.