The treadle lathe consists of a bench equipped with a long foot pedal connected to a wheel that, through a belt that runs around its circumference, transmits the rotational motion to a rotating shaft (pulley) on which the wood to be worked is fixed. This type of lathe, operated by human force, has been replaced by the electric lathe whose operating principle is identical.
By imparting a continuous rotary motion around the axis of the wood to be worked, the lathe allows it to be turned, or shaped by removing material with special tools (knives, gouges, blades).
Turning can be longitudinal, removing material along the length of the wood, if you want to obtain cylindrical objects (legs for tables and chairs, wheel hubs, etc.) or transverse, if you work by digging into the wood, to obtain hollow objects (plates, cups, etc.).