Small lathes driven by a hand held bow probably provided the earliest form of turning, particularly of small items, not just of wood but Ivory, bone, amber and precious metals. Very fine gold Celtic jewelry has been shown to have been worked on the bow lathe. Bow Lathes also figure in early engineering, especially in clock and watch making.

It is almost certain that the earliest lathes also encompassed reciprocation with the power provided either by the workman himself or with the aid of another individual. The earliest illustration of a lathe is from a well known Egyptian wall relief carved in stone in the tomb of Petosiris dated some 300 BC. As with many Middle Eastern and eastern lathes of this type it was operated at ground level, in this case by two men. Due to standard Egyptian artistic convention each element of the lathe is depicted in the most comprehendible manner for the observer. This results in a misleading depiction as it appears to show a vertical lathe when in fact what is intended is a horizontal strap lathe. One man provides the power by pulling backwards and forwards on a cord or leather strap wrapped around the work piece while the turner sits opposite with his chisel on the tool rest.

At a similar period, the Iron Age inhabitants of the Glastonbury Lake villages have been shown to be very competent woodturners. Excavations show these English West Country Celts to have produced some quite sizeable turned artifacts such as spokes and hubs for wheels. Mallets, bowls, tool handles as well as smaller items like stoppers for jars are amongst items recovered by amateur archaeologist Arthur Bullieid and Harold St George Gray over a century ago. No actual lathe evidence was discovered and so one can only make assumptions. Strap or bow lathes could have been used for the smaller artifacts but turning wheel hubs would require more power than would probably be available from a strap lathe. It is almost certain that pole lathes were used to produce the larger items.

The Romans were familiar with the wood turning lathe, they were particularly adept at making very fine lidded boxes and containers from boxwood, and there was also a demand for sophisticated furniture parts for couches and such. In Dorset they were turning Shale, a soft stone from the kimmeridge area into body adornments such as amulets.

Archaeological excavations at York uncovered over-whelming evidence that woodturning played a significant role in daily life during the Viking period of occupation. The Vikings were great artisans and natural woodworkers, and most every day domestic items were fashioned from wood. It seems everyone used wooden bowls in York; these were turned in small timber buildings behind the houses fronting the streets. Apart from complete bowls many ‘cores’, the waste centre pieces remaining after being turned on a pole lathe, were found. These cores and the discovery of part of an adjustable tool rest provided enough clues as to what the lathe looked like and how it functioned. It is interesting that even in modern time’s parallels can be found. George William Lailey in Berkshire was using a virtually identical bowl turning lathe until 1958. Even today Ion Constantin works in just the same fashion in his Romanian back yard.

The earliest illustrations of a pole lathe occur in the 13th century. A very stylized stained glass window in Chartres Cathedral clearly depicts what looks like a woman seated at the lathe complete with cord and foot treadle. A much more precise rendition is to be found in a French illuminated manuscript. Again the turner appears to be a woman and the lathe components themselves seem to be turned and decorated with bead ornament.

A German family called Mendel founded a home for aged craftsmen in 1388. In 1425 the family instigated a ‘house book’ in which a full-page portrait was incorporated of each deceased artisan including a Pole Lathe turner. The turners lathe bed of a solid ‘table top’ type made up of a single plank of wood is unusual although there was a tradition in Wales for this design last century! The artist has captured the broad chisels and skew very well but has omitted the tool rest.

The “Book of Trades” published in Nuremberg in 1568 includes a woodcut of what we might call a production tuner. His workshop faces the street and also serves as a shop front. He seems to be using mostly hook tools judging from those hung on the rack behind him and the position of the tool he is using. The range of the turner, if this pictorial view is representative is enormous. The German text says: “The turner makes little jewel boxes of Boxwood, cases, pulpits. Bedposts, hammer handles, bowling pins and mallets. He is shown making a bowling pin, also in his ‘shop’ are dishes, furniture legs, a flute and drinking flasks turned on double axis. All this illustrates the versatility and importance of the pole lathe in a thriving medieval city.

If space for a pole was limited, perhaps by a low ceiling a bow and ‘shreave’ was some times used as a substitute from the late17th cent. An archery type bow with several strings (‘Cat gut’) passing through a bobbin (the shreave) on to which the lathe line was attached. As the foot treadle was depressed the Shreave revolved, wound up the bow cord and in doing so applied enough tension to the bow to provide for the upward return of the treadle. This was a temperamental and sophisticated alternative to the spring pole with the only advantage of compactness. It had the additional disadvantage of restricting the movement of the cord to any desired area of the work. The simple pole was much more versatile.

In his book, ‘Hand or Simple Turning’ John Jacob Holtzapffel illustrates a Chinese pipe stem turner using another form of reciprocal motion. After the drive cord is wound round the driving mandrill the two ends terminate at separate foot pedals. The operator works seated and pumps the foot pedals alternatively, such a lathe is only suitable for light work. In the same book Holtzapffel describes an itinerant strap lathe turner who sets up his crude lathe wherever the job might be. If a customer needs to replace a broken furniture part for instance the turner commences by ramming two low posts into the ground at the required distance apart and to tie a horizontal tool rest to them. Round nails or spikes are driven through the posts to act as centres. A boy is engaged to pull on the ends of the coca-nut rope that is wrapped round the work in alternative directions. The turner then sits on the ground holding the turning tool in both hands and manipulates the cutting edge with his toes.

What may seem surprising to many people is the long continuous history of using reciprocating lathes; one might think that the early use of the wheel would have had a more significant impact. It is impossible to write a chronological history of the lathe expecting each new advance to supercede the last and completely replace it; life is not that simple. Jan Joris Van Der Vliet’s etching of 1635 shows a Dutch spindle turner at his Pole Lathe, a lathe identical to those used commercially in the Beech woods of England less than 50 years ago and still used by some craftsmen today. Indeed there is a renaissance; the association of Pole Lathe Turners (UK) enjoys a membership of over 350 enthusiasts.

Next >> Part 2: Continuous Rotation

The great advantage of a wheel driven lathe is that continuous and controlled rotary motion is possible. This was not an automatic benefit to every aspect of woodturning though, as is illustrated by the continuing use of the reciprocating bow, strap and pole lathes. These ancient, simple lathes could still compete and perform efficiently in certain specialist areas such as small spindle and bowl turning.

Joseph Moxon (1683) put the wheel’s advantage as:

“Besides the commanding heavy work about, the wheel rids work faster off than the pole can do; because the springing up of the pole makes an intermission in the running about of the work, but with the wheel the work runs always the same way; so that the tool never be off it, unless it be to examine the work as it is doing”.

It is a drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci C.1480 that affords us our first glimpse of what an early treadle wheel lathe looked like. The main eliminates required for self-propelled continuous rotation is clearly shown, the flywheel, crank and treadle. It was the crank in conjunction with the flywheel that provided a huge leap forward in technological advance. The crank, linked to a treadle provided constant rotation whilst the momentum of the large flywheel ensured the crank was carried over its ‘dead spot’. The drawing also shows an adjustable tailstock with a threaded cranked handle. Leonardo is often attributed to the invention of the wheel lathe but I think it is more likely he was sketching something quite well known in his time. Indeed I think it almost certain that the cranked wheel lathe was known in Roman times.

One disadvantage of Leonardo’s lathe is that it only provided direct drive, so the speed of the machine relies entirely on the speed of the turner’s foot on the treadle, but it is beautifully simple and compact with its integral wheel. The next advance was to mount the wheel independent of the headstock and linking the two via a belt or cord, this allowed the use of stepped pulleys to be used. With this arrangement a number of gear ratios were available and could be chosen simply by moving the drive belt from one stepped groove, either in the wheel, the headstock pulley or both to another.

John Jacob Holzzapffel writing in 1881 describes most beautifully the advantages of the wheel lathe as follows:

“Flywheels afford the lathe two important advantages. Their momentum, equalizes the results of the varying muscular effort expended in driving them; storing up all in excess for the work load to be overcome, and parting again with just so much, as is necessary to carry on an equal revolution under occasional increased strain, and during the recurring periods of diminished effort. Thus, permitting a maximum of power to be conveyed to the work, with a minimum of fatigue to the operator.”

The positioning of the wheel exercised the minds of many lathe users and builders over the following centuries. Joseph Moxon, in 1683 illustrates the wheel, contained in its own separate frame mounted on the floor beneath the lathe bed. In contrast Charles Plumier in 1701 depicts a French lathe with the drive wheel fixed in a frame to the wall above the lathe. The frame was raised or lowered by a wooden screw to enable adjustment to the drive belt .It is interesting to note the Plumier lathe incorporates a spring bow that could be used in conjunction with, or separately to the wheel.

Even though the foot treadle wheel lathe was a great advance, for many forms of turning it still had it’s limitations regarding the size of object to be turned. For heavy work the ‘great wheel’ was developed. These wheels were often six feet (2m) or more in diameter and were freestanding, usually being some distance from the lathe itself. The drive was a large cranked handle, sometimes one on each side. One or two men were employed in turning the ‘great wheel’ as required whilst the turner was left free to turn such items as large table legs, Lignum Vitae Wassail bowls or wheel hubs.

A Great wheel lathe was illustrated in a nice little woodcut published in the ‘Book of Trades’ published C.1568 in Germany by Jost Amman. It depicts a pewterers workshop open to the street as was often the custom in medieval times. The ‘wheel turner’ cranking the great wheel can clearly be seen as can the Pewterer forming vessels on the lathe.

Although we tend to think of early lathe turning as the production of essential domestic objects there were exceptions. The treadle wheel lathe provided some members of the aristocracy with a hobby that some found as absorbing as any modern day turner. This section of society was more consumed with ‘ornamental turning’ and vied with each other for the most lavishly equipped machines. Ornamental lathes were very special; they allowed both the cutting tool and the object to revolve independently and at the same time. There was great competition amongst royal family’s to create ever more intricate and fantastic objects from exotic materials. As early as the sixteenth century the Hapsburg emperors were keen hobby turners, in Russia Peter the Great (1672-1725) pursued it with a passion and in France Louis XVI (1774-1792) was a great exponent and patron.

The Jurra region of France has long been a centre of woodturning and they devised some very ingenious treadle wheel lathes. One example consists of an upright wooden frame housing a lightweight spoked wooden wheel of approximately three feet (1 metre) diameter above a small lathe bed. This C.19th century lathe was designed for the manufacture of small turnings in Boxwood and Ox bone. It can be seen at the Art Tournage and Culture museum near Lons Le Saunier.

Geared cogwheels are rarely found in early lathes but I have seen two exceptions, one in France, the other in Romania. Although not ‘wheel’ lathes as such, they embrace the use of metal gear wheels to enhance the continuos revolutions gained by one turn of a cranked hand opperrated handle. Both examples appear to be wheelwright’s lathes for the turning of hubs for wooden wheels and would require two people to operate them, the woodturner and the handle turner.

Previous >> Part 1: Reciprocal Motion

Next >> Part 3: Mechanical Power

It does appear that the woodturners of old were content to continue with their tried and trusty traditional methods long after other sources of power were available to many of them. There were good economical reasons for this. No advantage was to be gained by expensive investment when the simple reliable technology of the strap, bow, pole and latter wheel lathes was usually just as efficient and more reliable.

We know that water driven lathes were used in some European countries during the last two hundred years or so. Plumier, in 1701 describes a water wheel powered metal turning lathe. In Bulgaria waterpower was used for turning the large diameter tops for traditional low tables. Bowls were turned in some alpine regions using this readily available source of motive energy. In the English village of Tintern early last century chair legs were produced on lathes driven via water wheels, probably a new use for a mill that was originally built to grind corn.

In Northwest England in the early nineteenth century the ‘Bobbin Masters’ of Cumbria had installed water wheels to drive lathes in their bobbin factories. This was in response to the huge demand for wooden bobbins required by the ever-growing cotton spinning mills of Lancashire, at a time when the industrial revolution was expanding fast. By 1854 the waterwheel at Stott Park bobbin mill had been replaced with water turbines. Turbines were much more efficient; they consisted of a large shaft-mounted propeller submerged in a duct through which the water flowed. The force of the water turned the propeller and shaft and by means of gearing drove the machinery.

An Englishman, Captain Thomas Savery built the first practical steam engine in 1698. Early steam engines were huge and developed to pump water from mines and later to drive heavy engineering machinery (including metalworking lathes) to produce machine tools. By the middle of the nineteenth century steam engines were to be found driving woodworking machinery in a few factories and even in specialist woodturneries such as the Cumbrian bobbin mills.

The first internal combustion engine was built in 1860 but it was many years before it was produced in small reliable units of sufficient power suitable to run a lathe or two. By the turn of the nineteenth century these ‘oil engines’ were employed in some small factories and woodworking shops, particularly those involved in ‘production turning’. James East of Chesham, Bucks, ran a number of wooden bedded lathes from a single engine via line shafting mounted in the roof space. The line shaft was kept in continual motion. The flat belt drive to the lathe could be disengaged as desired by maneuvering the belt from a fixed pulley onto a loose pulley (‘fast and loose’) using a simple lever.

As these oil engines became more reliable and compact (and cheaper) they also became popular with ‘one man band’ woodturners with small workshops. A case in point was Charles Dean, a Holmer Green chair bodger. Charles began turning with a pole lathe in the local woodlands. In 1924 he installed an oil engine in his back garden shed to drive a lathe and in addition a bandsaw and circular saw. Mechanization was at last within reach of the village turner! In the 1920s Charles friend Harry Tilbury immigrated to Australia. A letter from Harry to Charles dated April 1923 read “Guess the old pole lathe will soon be a thing of the past, haven’t heard that you had got the engine in yet, but I suppose it is to come. Guess a fellow won’t recognize the place if he happen to get back there?” How right he was, Charles son Alan used the same lathe until his death in 1982.

Garden rakes have been manufactured at the ‘Rake Factory’ in a small Kentish village since Victorian times. Little has changed over 150 years; most of the original machinery is still there and working, connected to the original line shafting. The old steam engine is long gone; it was replaced by a large diesel engine from a scraped lorry decades ago. One of the machines it powers is an unusual ‘rounding’ lathe. It consists of a wooden headstock within which is housed a wooden pulley and bearings. The drive-chuck end of the headstock contains a square recess to receive and rotate long squared section ash stock to be converted into rake handles. While the Ash stock is slowly turning a hand held ‘Stail Engine’ or ‘Rounder’ is fed over it from the free end and slowly coaxed along the complete length. This is a very efficient method of converting long, thin section square material to round. Close by is another, slightly latter rounding lathe. With this example the squared section timber is fed in one end, passes through a set of revolving knives and emerges through the other side completely round.

For the large majority of us today all that is required to run a lathe is to push a button and the magic of electricity does the rest. My first experience of woodturning was with a ‘Black and Decca’ electric power drill and the purpose made lathe ‘attachment’, all set up on the kitchen table. Electric motors provided a compact and powerful drive force and allow modern lathes to be built as complete portable self-contained units. Reliable electric motors have been available for about a century; I rescued a C.1910 1 hp motor from an old woodware factory some years ago that was used for driving a lathe. It is still in working order and linked to a lathe of the same period.

Many production lathes, whether driven by electricity or other power source were single speed only, By the middle of the 20th century self contained lathes with integral electric motors having stepped pulleys were developed, the Myford ML8 is a good example. It was ‘portable’ lathes such as this that made woodturning more accessible to the individual and hobby turner. Stopping the lathe to change the drive belt onto another pulley can be tiresome when there is a requirement to do so regularly. In recent years there have been several advancements regarding speed changing with out the need to stop the lathe.

Some time ago Poolwood introduced the ‘Poolwood 28-40’ incorporating a variable cone belt drive operated by a handle. This allowed the operator to change the running speed without the necessity to stop the lathe, but in doing so there is a small loss of power due to the extra gearing involved. This power loss problem and complex gearing has now been eliminated by the development of direct drive through the motor itself, the speed being controlled electronically by the turn of a small knob. At the moment this technology is expensive but I think it will prove to be the way ahead. In the mean time many of us will still be switching the motor on and off to change the spindle speed via pulleys and a drive belt.

Previous >> Part 2: Continuous Rotation

Next >> Part 4: The Machine Takes Over

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.

There are two basic types of what Blanchard called reproducing lathes, the first type mechanically follows a template or three dimensional pattern and is generally known as a copy or copying lathe. The second type are called automatics and contain a series of profiled blades set in a revolving drum, both have their own advantages. A copy lathe is capable of producing eccentric shapes such as those that Thomas Blanchard was interested in while an automatic lathe was primarily used for turning spindle work. A well-adjusted and sharpened automatic lathe is capable of tuning very complex and highly detailed shapes extremely quickly.

William Fell of Cumbria developed lathes of both types and by 1880 was exporting them to Russia, Japan and North America. Fell lathes are still widely used today. A German firm called Kirchner from Leipzig manufactured a large variety of automatic and copy lathes. In a catalogue C.1925 these included lathes for producing Oval picture frames, wooden shoe heals, cabriol chair legs and barley sugar twists.

It is interesting to note the impact that mechanization has had on the chair making area of High Wycombe over the last seventy years. In my own village of Holmer Green, close to the town, many local men were still using pole lathes to turn chair legs well into last century. One enterprising man, Bert Saunders decided to mechanized and invested in a semi automatic lathe to increase production. This machine worked relentlessly for many decades until the 1970s.

The heart of the lathe was a large steal horizontal drum that acted as a cutter-block, rather as in a spindle moulder. A series of paired profiled cutters, called knives in the trade, were secured along its length, ‘setting up’ required great skill as did the profiling and sharpening of the cutters themselves. The drum revolved at great speed while the wood to be turned was held firm in a slowly revolving carrier. The carrier was advanced towards the cutters by way of a long lever like handle. After a few seconds the chair leg was completed, removed and another Beech blank put into the carrier and the process repeated.

These lathes were only viable for long production runs of identical objects and such a lathe would have represented a sizeable investment. Careful consideration of all the pros and cons would have been essential, and direct comparisons with pole lathe production assessed. For instance, would enough work of an identical nature be forth coming? Frequent stopping of production to change cutters for short runs is time wasting. Unlike the pole lathe turners who used comparatively cheap green wood the semiautomatic lathe required more expensive dimetioned seasoned timber from the local sawmill.

There was a time saving in as much as this timber was ready prepared and ready for use where as the chair bodgers had to convert theirs from the whole tree. Convenience was also a factor, the whole operation could be undertaken on one site, in the case of Bert Saunders this was a large ramshackle wooden workshop in the village center. I still remember the gentle hum of machinery escaping through the leaning dust encrusted weather boarded workshops. When I was very young this seemed a place of remote mystery. It was many years later, just before demolition to make way for flats that I entered into the gloomy interior to record another little bit of passing history.

Ercol is a name synonymous with Quality furniture. This High Wycombe Company was established by Lucian Ercolani in 1920. He was a great believer in mechanization and claimed to be the first of the chair masters in the town to put the flat belts that drove the machines under the floor for safety.

During the 1970s the firm installed a ‘turning line’, a complete system that is fed with squared blanks at one end and from the other a completed chair turning emerges ready for assembly. Manufactured by the German firm Hempel it was developed in collaboration with Ercol. It is a copy lathe: that is to say a template that dictates the path of the cutter determines the shape of the turning.

Starting with a pallet load of sawn squares the operator feeds a moving horizontal chain-like conveyer that takes the blanks through to the first operation. Twin saws trim each end to the required length; the blank is carried onward to be automatically located between lathe centres and set spinning. A traversing ‘stay ring’ (steady) ensures there is no ‘whip‘, this travels from right to left immediately in front of the fixed cutter who’s path is dictated by the template. Upon completion of this move the stay ring and cutter return and two other ‘chisel’ cutters move in to form a round tenon at each end (chair stretchers were being turned on my visit).

If holes are required they are bored automatically on their conveyor journey towards the sanding section. Here the turning is again centered and revolved at high speed against a series of sanding paper grades cushioned against flexible brushes comprising of a vegetable fibre. As the turned stretcher slowly exits the sanding section, still held on the conveyer it is delivered to the end of the machine for final trimming to length, and in the case of a chair leg, a slotted through tenon can also be cut at this stage. For such a machine to run economically very large runs of the same item are needed. The Ercol Hempel lathe requires a breakdown time of approximately eight hours to change from producing one design to another. When running at full capacity the Hemple is capable of turning 365 pieces per hour.

Here’s a thought, are the hand turners of history now turning in their graves?

Previous >> Part 3: Mechanical Power

How long has man been turning wood? Almost certainly longer than we have evidence for! What did the first lathe look like? We are not sure, but we can come to a reasonable conclusion bearing in mind the materials and technology available. There are just a few early illustrations that give us some insight plus the continuing use of simple technology in parts of the under-developed world.

One thing is certain, all early lathes would have been of the reciprocal variety, that is to say, the material to be turned would have been supported between two centres and spun backwards and forwards in some way. Many people will be familiar with this concept via the ‘pole lathe’ as it is still used today by certain traditional chair makers, both amateur and professional, and can often be seen demonstrated at various craft events.

The earliest illustration of a lathe is from a well known Egyptian wall relief carved in stone in the tomb of Petosiris dated some 300 BC. As with many Middle Eastern and eastern lathes of this type it was operated at ground level, in this case by two men. One man provides the power by pulling backwards and forwards on a cord or leather strap wrapped around the work piece while the turner sits opposite with his chisel on the tool rest. Due to standard Egyptian artistic convention each element of the lathe is depicted in the most comprehensible manner for the observer. This results in a misleading depiction as it appears to show a vertical lathe when in fact what is intended is a horizontal strap lathe.

Of a similar period, the Iron Age inhabitants of the Glastonbury Lake villages have been shown to be very competent woodturners. Excavations show these English West Country Celts to have produced some quite sizeable turned artefacts such as spokes and hubs for wheels. Mallets, bowls, tool handles as well as smaller items like stoppers for jars. These are all items recovered by amateur archaeologist Arthur Bullieid and Harold St George Gray over a century ago. No actual lathe evidence was discovered and so one can only make assumptions. Bow lathes could have been used for the smaller artefacts but turning wheel hubs would require more power than would probably be available from a bow lathe. It is almost certain that either pole or strap lathes were used to produce the larger items.

It is a drawing, or rather a simple sketch (see the drawing to the right) by the Italian genius Leonardo Da Vinci C.1480 that affords us our first glimpse of what an early treadle wheel lathe looked like. The main elements required for foot propelled continuous rotation is clearly shown for the first time; the flywheel, crank and treadle. It was the crank, in conjunction with the flywheel that provided a huge technological advance (the principal is still used in our modern internal combustion engines). The crank, linked to a treadle provided constant rotation whilst the momentum of the large flywheel ensured the crank was carried over it’s ‘dead spot’. The sketch also shows an adjustable tailstock with a threaded cranked handle.

Many of Leonardo’s inventions have been put to the test in recent times, indeed a number of them, such as his hang glider have been the subject of absorbing television documentaries. Because it appeared that no one had previously attempted to recreate the great mans lathe, to see if it was a viable and practical machine, the Worshipful company of Turners decided that such a project would be a fitting part of their quarto-centenary celebrations.

I was commissioned to recreate the lathe in time for the June exhibition, ‘Wizardry in Wood’, held at the Pewterers Hall, London. Although the concept is very simple, with the original being a collaboration between turner and blacksmith, the end result is a surprisingly powerful machine. The kinetic energy produced via foot treadle and flywheel is amazing. This is only one small step in historical science but we have proved that yet again Leonardo got there first, and yes it does work!

Whether Leonardo actually designed this treadle lathe or whether he just sketched what was already in existence will always be a matter of debate, but one thing is for certain, without it there would not have been, could not have been an industrial revolution! This lathe is the first machine tool, the father of all others that went on to produce ever increasingly complex machines leading to the industrial age we live in today!

Photos of Leonardo Da Vinci’s lathe, as reconstructed by Stuart King

Reconstruction starts using traditional tools >>

Boring a hole with an auger to take the crankshaft >>

Detail of the crankshaft >>

Sixty revolutions per minute >>

A small bowl turned with a hook tool >>

Tuition at the Wizardry in Wood exhibition 2004 © Worshipful Company of Turners >>

Stuart King proves that Leonardo got it right © Worshipful Company of Turners >>

A tribute to Leonardo Da Vinci by stuart King, a plaque turned from oak and lime and pyrographed >>

Some spinners use a spinning wheel while many more produce woollen thread with the aid of a drop spindle, simply a turned wooden tapering shaft about 16 inches long and about one inch diameter towards its base. They are sold at local markets and still form part of peasant culture.

Despite an ever-increasing exodus to the City by the young, peasant or country life remains strong and forms an important part of the East European economy.My first encounter with a bow lathe turner was in Bulgaria during my 1991 travels. The objective on this particular occasion was to photograph a spoon maker called Todor Dinev. It was on my second day as their guest that I was told of the bow lathe, it being thought of as a fairly insignificant item. Indeed Todor had been using an ancient electric lathe for the previous five years and this had replaced the traditional bow lathe that had been handed down through Mrs Dinev’s female line for generations. There appears to be a strong tradition of this work being done by the women folk.

This Bulgarian bow lathe had no frame: it consisted of a wooden bed with two wedge-held poppets as in a pole lathe. These poppets or centres each contained a rounded recess instead of protruding centres to retain the word to be turned. This is an ideal solution to the stock holding problem as each end of the finished drop spindle terminates with a dull point. No pointed centre could hold such work. The whole lathe was made of wood, including the bow stick; only the drive, which wrapped around the work pole-lathe fashion, was not wood, it being leather.

Because the lathe has no supporting framework the operator has to wedge one end into a doorjamb or other convenient object whilst the other end is held by the Turner’s shoulder. The hand – forged turning tool was of a design I had not seen before, nor since. It has a wide half-moon profile blade incorporating an integral steel blade. The whole contraption appears ungainly and awkward, yet this particular lathe and tool has produced many thousands of drop spindles over several generations of users.

Unique is a much over used word but I did think I’d stumbled upon something pretty unusual in these modern times. It was to be another seven years before my next encounter with this primitive form of turning. I had revisited Romania in April of this year to record and photograph pole lathe turner Ion Constantin turning traditional drinking flasks. When this assignment was completed Ion casually mentioned to my Romanian interpreter and fellow woodworker Zina that his wife was also a wood turner and would we like to see her at work? This was a complete surprise and we replied with a delighted “yes please”. The bed of Mrs Constantin’s bow lathe was very similar to that of its Bulgarian counterpart but with the addition of a frame, which enabled it to be free-standing. Apart from this the only difference was that instead of a leather driving thong the bow on this Romanian example used string.

The stock Ion used for the Romanian drop spindles was poplar. They were roughed out with a side axe and whittled to an over-sized approximation using a knife. This preparation work was done by Mr Constantin and handed over to his wife who then completed the task.

The stock or billet was placed between the recessed cup centres of the poppets, which were secured by ‘tapped in’ wedges. The string is wound once around the billet and held taut by the thumb inserted in the looped end. The end of the bow stick is also held in the same hand and with a fiddle action the billet is rotated backwards and forwards. Actual turning however can only take place on the down stroke with the top of the work rotating towards the operator. Just one tool is used to produce a complete spindle. It is approximately 7 3/4″ long with a slightly flared, flat blade of about 2 3/4″ wide and hand – forged. A kneeling position is adopted for the turning process, which is completed in a remarkably short time. These drop spindles are decorated in a very simple manner with a series of dark lines and coloured bands. The dark, pencil-like lines are applied with the edge of a piece of lead pipe, flattened for the purpose by Mr Constantin using the top of his side axe as a hammer. Applying the red and green bands was a more involved affair. First, wet wood ash was rubbed on the spot to be decorated, then the tip of a cloth was dipped in water, dabbed into either red or green powder and finally rubbed into the spindle as it was revolved in the lathe.

This trip into living history was for me an unforgettable event. To meet one turner plying his ancient tradition on the pole lathe was one thing, to then see his wife using a bow lathe not dissimilar to that engraved on an ancient Egyptian tomb quite another. Mr and Mrs Constantin, with their modest mode of life and unassuming nature, are a truly remarkable pair of woodturners.