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

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!

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 >>