Stuart wins Strictly Woodturning

Strictly WoodturningOn the evening of Friday 23rd October 2009, attended by 170 guests, delegates and turners, Axminster Tool Centre hosted the Strictly Woodturning event.

Similar to the BBC’s popular Strictly Come Dancing, this was a competition in which the 12 turners competed against each other at the lathe and were tasked with producing items such as a vase, goblet and lidded box in an incredibly short eight minutes.

At the end of the first round, the four turners with the most votes (as cast by the delegates in the audience) went through to the semi final. The four were Nick Agar, Jason Breach, Stuart King and Tracy Owen.

The final was contested between two show men of the woodturning world – Nick Agar and Stuart King. Although Nick had the X factor and was a big hit with the ladies in the audience, Stuart… with great flurries of showmanship including pompoms, balloons and a Halloween mask  …ultimately secured the judges’ votes and was crowned the winner of Strictly Woodturning 2009. It was a uniquely entertaining night.

Fan bird carving

Fan bird carving is a form of folk art woodcarving that has been practised all over Europe, from Romania to Russia and from Poland to Scandanavia, and was often executed with nothing more than a pocket knife to while away the time. I shot this video at the annual gathering of the Association of Pole Lathe Turners, an event known affectionately as the Bodgers Ball.

Video from the Bodgers Ball 2009 – the Log to Leg race

History of Marquetry (with Glossary)

Marquetry designsThe earliest evidence that I am aware of for marquetry/inlay is a remarkable casket from the city or UR, in Mesopotamia dated c2600 BC. Much of the work is cut from ivory and set in bitumen and is a pictorial representation of a mixture of royal and daily life. Not until the European renaissance do we again encounter pictorial decoration using contrasting veneers in the form of intarsia. This inlay technique was originally centred in the Italian city of Sienna in the 11th century and much used to decorate church furniture and panels. Read more »

Spinning metal on a lathe

Metal spinning latherBronze age folk turned metal on a lathe. The early Greeks also did it, the Romans were experts at it and the Anglo Saxons were doing it in the Dark Ages.

For this short video Stuart King has filmed a 19th century lathe whilst it was being used to spin flat sheet metal discs. These metal discs would then be shaped into pans and containers.

Stuart would like to thank the craftsmen of Ballarat in Australia, where this video was filmed. Read more »

History of the Lathe: part four – the machine takes over

Man has always tried to find ways of making manual tasks easier and the businessman methods to reduce manpower, speed production and lower operating costs. A good illustration of this was the manufacture of rifle butts. Hand held firearms have existed since the Middle Ages and virtually all these weapons incorporated a hand fashioned wooden butt. Making rifle butts was a highly skilled and time-consuming occupation and in time highly protective guilds were formed and prices kept at a high level.

This was just the sort of situation where a machine solution would be welcomed by firearm manufacturers, and in 1820, an Englishman, Thomas Blanchard designed a ‘reproducing lathe’. Blanchard’s lathe was capable of making two rifle butts an hour and it was not long before he had built one capable of producing ten or twelve in an hour. He went on to devise other reproducing lathes to manufacture shoe lasts and axe handles. Read more »