Woodturning
Woodturning is the craft of using a wood lathe with hand-held tools to cut a shape that is symmetrical around the axis of rotation.
Items made on the lathe include tool handles, candlesticks, egg cups, knobs, lamps, rolling pins, cylindrical boxes, Christmas ornaments, bodkins, knitting needles, needle cases, thimbles, pens, chessmen, spinning tops; legs, spindles, and pegs for furniture; balusters and newel posts for architecture; baseball bats, hollow forms such as woodwind musical instruments, urns, sculptures; bowls, platters, and chair seats.
21st-century turners restore furniture, continue folk-art traditions, produce custom architectural work, and create fine crafts for galleries.
Woodturning appeals to people who like to work with their hands, find pleasure in problem-solving, or enjoy the tactile and visual qualities of wood.
The reciprocating lathe, while primitive technology requiring considerable dexterity to operate, is capable of excellent results in skilled hands.
For example, reciprocating bow lathes are still used to turn beads for the Arabian lattice windows called Meshrebeeyeh that so charmed Holtzapffel in the 1880s.
[1] Continuous revolution of the workpiece can be human-powered with a treadle wheel, or achieved with water, steam, or electric power.
Dry wood is necessary for turnings that require precision, as in the fit of a lid to a box, or in forms where pieces are glued together.
Although other woodworkers value tight, straight grain, woodturners often search out the unusual wood from roots, defects, or diseased portions of trees.
Between 1975 and 1985, industrial arts teachers, hobbyists, artists, collectors, and tool suppliers developed the symposium format for the exchange of information about the craft.
The community organizes regional, national, and international symposiums publish journals, and hosts traveling experts at club events.
[6] Finely crafted drinking bowls, known as mazers, were produced in very limited quantities from dry wood, then decorated with silver-gilt central bosses and rims.
This was a continuous revolution lathe, which led to adaptation to external power sources such as water, steam, and electricity.
Itinerant turners known as Bodgers set up temporary pole lathes near the source of wood for turning furniture parts.
In the US, woodturning was part of the curriculum of industrial arts taught in public schools—often a prerequisite for classes in building furniture.
The 'problems' from textbooks included both tool management skills, and assignments to turn objects such as gavels, darning eggs, boxes, trays, candlesticks, lamps, and legs for furniture.
They worked very slowly to achieve precision, using enormous pattern maker lathes and slow-cutting scraping tools.
[18] Industrial arts teachers used their institutional affiliation to create seminars, publish books, and foster research.
Instead, practitioners of the craft have become adept at learning from demonstrations, private classes, regional meetings, their own published journals, and internet technologies.
Some artists began as woodturners, and moved into more sculptural work, experimenting with super object forms and other fine craft concepts.
Complex forms made on a wood lathe develop from surprisingly few types of cuts: parting, planing, bead, cove, and hollowing.
When it is necessary to sand the piece, they do so on the lathe, using abrasives held by a hand, in an inertial sander that revolves with the wood's rotation, or with power tools—drills or right-angle drills.
The headstock spindle may also use a cup, collet, or scroll chuck to hold a tenon on the workpiece which will be removed in the finished product.
When this happens, the blued area must then be ground away to expose fresh steel and the tool must then have the bevel reestablished and the edge re-honed.
When working with spinning objects, loose clothing should not be worn; all jewelry should be removed; and long hair should be tied back.
Particular care is required for wooden shapes that are not circular, such as off-center work, and for bowls with wings or square rims.
