Mike Darlow's Woodturning Series: Useful Woodturning Projects E-Book

Mike Darlow

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 243

Beschreibung

The ultimate guide to woodturning useful items! Build your turning skills as you create functional and attractive woodturning projects. Featuring 14 project sections – most of which contain multiple variations for an endless array of inspiration – you'll turn everything from frames, funnels, and spinning tops to both antique and modern chess sets, a pepper grinder, backscratcher, and so much more. Also included are step-by-step instructions, helpful photography and diagrams, dimensioned scale drawings for over 20 woodturning projects, a detailed introduction to woodturning, and an informative section on various small tools. Author, instructor, and professional turner Mike Darlow has written seven other woodturning books, as well as hundreds of magazine articles for Fine Woodworking, The Woodworker, and Woodturning Design, making him a leading voice in the world of woodturning.

Leseprobe

©2021 by Mike Darlow and Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., 903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552.

Useful Woodturning Projects is an original work, first published in 2021 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holders.

Print ISBN 9781497101579

eISBN 9781607659150

The Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

To learn more about the other great books from Fox Chapel Publishing, or to find a retailer near you, call toll-free 800-457-9112 or visit us at www.FoxChapelPublishing.com.

We are always looking for talented authors. To submit an idea, please send a brief inquiry to [email protected].

For a printable PDF of the patterns used in this book, please contact Fox Chapel Publishing at [email protected], with 9781497101579 and Mike Darlow's Woodturning Series: Useful Woodturning Projects in the subject line.

CONTENTS

1INTRODUCTION

1.1 The growth in non-useful turning

1.2 The relative decline in useful turning

1.3 Conclusion

1.4 General matters

1.5 Endnotes

2SMALL TOOLS

2.1 Parting tools

2.2 Skew chisels

2.3 Detail gouges

2.4 Sharpening, handles and callipers

2.5 Endnotes

3A BACKSCRATCHER

4MAKING CHESSMEN

4.1 Chucking workpieces for leaded chessmen

4.2 Boring the leading hole

4.3 Chucking chessmen workpieces

4.4 Polishing

4.5 Leading

4.6 Leathering

5THREE ANTIQUE CHESS SETS

5.1 Signatures and symbols

5.2 The Rowbothum set

5.3 Matthew Flinders’ set

5.4 The Windsor design

5.5 Endnotes

6FIVE RECENT CHESS SET DESIGNS

6.1 Creating new designs

6.2 The Buenos design

6.3 The Manny set

6.4 The Tang design

6.5 The Lopez design

6.6 The Stamma design

6.7 Endnotes

6.8 Bibliography

7FRAMES

7.1 Hanging, rabbets and sealing

7.2 A faux bamboo frame

7.3 A larger bamboo frame

7.4 Another fully-turned frame

7.5 Split-spindle frames

7.6 Quadrant-corner frames

7.7 Eared frames

7.8 Diptych frames

7.9 Frames with Gothic arches

7.10 Frames constructed from more than one annulus

7.11 Endnotes

8FUNNELS

8.1 Funnel design

8.2 Making funnels

8.3 Endnotes

9MARKERS

9.1 Designing markers

9.2 Making markers

10MOLINILLOS

10.1 The chocolate tree

10.2 Early uses of chocolate

10.3 Modern processing

10.4 Making a molinillo

10.5 Endnotes

11MONAURAL STETHOSCOPES

11.1 History of the stethoscope

11.2 Making a monaural stethoscope

11.3 Endnotes

12A NEGUS STRAINER

12.1 Colonel Negus

12.2 Negus

12.3 Making a negus strainer

12.4 Endnotes

13AN IMPROVED PEPPER GRINDER

13.1 Pepper

13.2 Development of the pepper grinder

13.3 Pepper-grinder design

13.4 Making the grinder

13.5 Endnotes

14A POINT-PRESSER-AND-CLAPPER

14.1 Design

14.2 Making

15REEL STANDS

15.1 Antique reel stands

15.2 History

15.3 Making the reel stand

15.4 Endnotes

16SPINNING TOPS

16.1 Making the tops

17THIS BOOK’S TYPEFACES

17.1 Typefaces and fonts

17.2 Using typefaces

17.3 Style manuals

17.4 Endnotes

MILLIMETERS INTO INCHES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Since the publication in 2004 of my previous book, Turned Chessmen, I have continued to have about eight woodturning magazine articles published each year. Most have have been published in The Australian Woodworker published by Skills Publishing, and in GMC’s Woodturning. I thank Art, Greg and Steven Burrows at Skills, and Mark Baker at GMC for their support and friendship over many years.

Content from The Australian Woodworker is included in chapters 5, 6, 7. 11 and 16. Content from Woodturning is included in chapters 1 (Whither Woodturning article, 5, 6 and 13. I apologize for any omissions or inaccuracies in these two statements.

I thank Emily Darlow for posing for the figure 3.3 photograph. Also my wife, Aliki, for her tolerance and editing.

OTHER MIKE DARLOW WOODTURNING PUBLICATIONS

Books

The Practice of Woodturning

The Fundamentals of Woodturning

Bassiswisen Drechseln

Woodturning Methods

Woodturning Techniques

Woodturning Design

DVDs

The Practice of Woodturning

Sharpening Woodturning Tools

The Taming of the Skew

Key

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

My objectives with this book are to revive the turning of useful items, and to inspire readers to seek other useful turning subjects.

In the first four books of my woodturning series I covered the techniques of hand woodturning. The fifth book in the series, Turned Chessmen published in 2004, was my first project book. It was forecast to flop by a woodwork book marketing expert. 16 years after publication it continues to sell well. Feedback from buyers confirms that the book’s background and history content have been a major factor in the book’s success, being appreciated both by the turners, and, when passed on, by the users of those chess sets. This second project book continues that approach, and will thus, I hope, interest even those readers who aren’t about to undertake any of its projects.

Instead of focussing on one type of useful turning, this book’s projects cover a wide range. Some might consider that range too esoteric. My excuses are that it mirrors my own interests in turning, and illustrates the scope to explore.

The interest in turning useful projects has waned in recent decades. I believe that if turners increase the proportion of useful items in their output they would:

• enjoy their turning at least as much

• gain the potential to enjoy using the turnings they keep

• find that their turnings were better appreciated by others.

By useful I mean ‘can be used for other than aesthetic, contemplative or emotion-creating purposes’. A useful turning’s usefulness may be entirely due to the turning, as in a pastry-cook’s rolling pin. At the other extreme the turning may only add three-dimensional ornament to an item which is no less useful without the turning. Of course useful turnings aren’t always bought to be used—most buyers of Japanese tea caddies, such as those in figure 1.1, now buy them as ornaments and souvenirs and continue to make their tea with tea bags.

How to describe turnings which aren’t useful in the way I’ve described? My dictionary of antonyms offers useless as the antonym of useful. However, aesthetic, contemplative and emotion-creating purposes are valid and certainly not useless. For want of a better term, I shall therefore describe turnings which aren’t useful as non-useful.

Many now live in surroundings in which the only relatively unaltered natural substances are the air and the tap water. Wood is an obsolescent (becoming obsolete) material, and therefore woodturning is an obsolescent skill. But, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably already decided to disregard this truth and continue enjoy using a lathe to shape wood.

Figure 1.1     Three Japanese-style tea caddies turned from European ash (Fraxinus excelsior). They have incurved flanges so that the finely powdered green tea doesn’t billow into the air when the lid is lifted, not tugged, off. The top of the lid is almost flat, and during the tea ceremony a bamboo teaspoon or chashaku rests on it. In the bottom is a recess to grip on the hand.

The Japanese words for tea caddy are chaire and chaki. This type is a natsume, and is used to store the powdered tea for making thin tea.

Figure 1.2     A chair with at least eight designs of identical spindle.

I contend that during recent decades the hand turning of useful items has declined relative to that of non-useful items. As evidence I cite the 1921 edition of Paul Nooncree Hasluck’s The Wood Turner’s Handybook.1 Every turning pictured in it is useful as figures 1.2 and 1.3 demonstrate. In contrast, today’s woodturning often features non-useful bowls and vessels and the non-turning techniques which are used to apply two-dimensional decoration and three-dimensional ornament.

It’s true that during the last 50 years woodturning as an artisan and industrial technique to produce useful items (mainly components for buildings, furniture and woodware) has declined, but not disappeared. It’s also true that during that time hobby woodturning has increased in popularity, and it’s undoubtedly true that part of that increase is because woodturning has been increasingly promoted as a technique which can be exploited to create Fine Art. In many examples though the turning is a subsidiary technique used to provide a base for the decoration and ornament.

Figure 1.3     A towel rail constructed from five designs of identical turning.

I fully support this widening of woodturning’s horizons and ambitions, but not the associated:

• neglect of the potential for useful turnings to be rewarding turning subjects

• narrowing of the range of turning skills which turning teachers offer to beginners and which beginners seek to acquire, and which has thus resulted in a smaller proportion of turners being able to turn useful items

• neglect of pre-turning design.

In this first chapter I’ll discuss these changes by considering:

• why the growth in non-useful turning has occurred

• why, in parallel, turning of useful items has declined

This chapter then concludes with some housekeeping matters.

1.1 THE GROWTH IN NON-USEFUL TURNING

I’ll discuss the reasons for the growth in non-useful turning under four headings:

• the market for non-useful turnings

• the influence of the woodturning media

• today’s high-profile turners

• the influence of turners’ associations.

1.1.1 The market for non-useful woodturnings

Michael Dunbar made this insightful statement in his 2016 book Woodturning Techniques:2

Modern turners no longer work as subcontractors providing their products to other crafts. Instead, they largely focus on making complete turned objects that stand alone, such as bowls, vases, and platters. . . . Old-time turned objects were inexpensive. . . . Most of the objects made by today’s turners are very expensive, selling for prices that will make the uninitiated gasp with disbelief.

Dunbar’s statement’s first line “modern turners no longer work as subcontractors” suggests that his statement concerns professional woodturners. My assumption from the remainder of the statement is that these turners generate large incomes through producing non-useful one-offs. But is this assumption entirely correct?:

• A proportion of “professional” turners have significant non-turning income. A substantial proportion of some turners’ turning incomes comes from demonstrating, teaching, producing paper- and screen-based content about their pieces and techniques, supplying turners, and promoting turning events.

• Some turners’ pieces develop and exploit particular techniques or design features. A proportion of these turners earn income by teaching others how to replicate those same techniques or features. Doesn’t this suggest that the income from the sales of the originators’ pieces may be somewhat fickle?

• There are still some turners, albeit a small number, who earn their entire turning incomes as subcontract (jobbing) turners.

• We only hear of the big-money sales, not about the pieces which don’t sell and subsequently clutter their turners’ homes.

The last part of Dunbar’s statement “the objects made by today’s turners are very expensive, selling for prices that will make the uninitiated gasp with disbelief ” suggests that those objects aren’t priced according to their cost of production, but are priced as if they were Fine Art. The separation of art into high-status Fine Art and lower status craft occurred in Europe during the 18th century. This is not the place to debate the validity of this separation despite its continuing influence, or whether it has been undermined by the subsequent expansion of Fine Art to include such as photography and jazz. But, even if the Fine Art market were as strong as Dunbar implies, can it continue to absorb at worthwhile prices the volume of non-useful turnings being produced?

A factor limiting the acceptance of woodturning as a technique which can be used to create Fine Art is that it uses a lathe, a machine whose raison d’etre is to produce round items quickly. These associations conflict with the widely assumed properties of Fine Art.

1.1.2 The influence of the media

An early catalyst to the growth in non-useful turning was the publication of Dale Nish’s book Artistic Woodturning in 1980.3 Its gallery section promoted the non-useful works of several turners. The success of these and other high-profile turners of the non-useful has been and remains a powerful encouragement to the growth in non-useful turning. But, as with the corporate need to build a brand, all professional artists know the importance of building a name. They know that some high prices are due to buyers believing that owning a piece by a name artist bestows status on the buyer, and makes it more likely that the piece will appreciate rather than fall in monetary value over time.

Fortunately the woodturning media rightly believes that in the 21st century it needs bling. Non-useful turnings and the associated techniques, equipment and personalities can provide that bling and much of the content needed by the media of a practice which has an almost static technology. Therefore professional turners of the non-useful have sensibly cooperated with the woodturning media to their mutual benefit. By doing so these turners promote themselves, sales of their pieces, and are more likely to attract teaching and demonstration income.

An unfortunate recent trend is to promote woodturning as fun. This undervalues woodturning which is really about learning, applying that learning, exploration, achievement and modest pride, even though these are sometimes accompanied by frustration and failure. Woodturning also offers opportunities for social interaction.

1.1.3 Today’s high-profile turners

Professional turners used to be working class; many had been apprenticed. Today some are tertiary educated, and/or are semi- or fully-retired and comfortably off. These turners may understandably be reluctant to work as jobbing turners once did, producing batches of useful turned building and furniture components and woodware, often designed by others, to order. Instead they’re more likely to promote themselves as artists who seek to turn what they conceive. Hobby turners are understandably attracted by this possibility.

1.1.4 The influence of woodturners’ associations

Professional turners of the non-useful have been and are hard-working and influential in woodturners’ clubs and regional and national associations. Not surprisingly this has and continues to influence the focus of those organisations and the types of turnings their members produce.

The memberships of the British and the American Woodturners Associations are in 2019 about 3,000 plus and 18,000 respectively. These totals are a credit to all past and present officers, although equivalent to only 1 in about 20,000 of their country’s populations. Had these two organisations focussed less on non-useful turning would those numbers be higher? It’s impossible to know.

1.2 THE RELATIVE DECLINE IN USEFUL TURNING

The relative decline in useful turning is in part a reaction to the factors discussed in the preceding section, but there are other factors which are discussed below:

• the influence of modernism

• the influence of suppliers

• the misbelief that the range of useful turnings is small

• wood supply and properties

• useful turning is perceived as less creative

• woodturning skills

• design

• demand.

1.2.1 The influence of today’s dominant design style

Today’s dominant design styles outside woodturning are variants of modernism, a style a century old and defined by Jonathan Woodham as “a ‘machine age’ aesthetic truly redolent of the twentieth century which, freed from the shackles of historicism, explored new forms and materials that were felt to be symbolically, if not actually, compatible with the mass production capacity of a progressive industrial culture”.4

Modernism’s now not-so-new aesthetic and its rejection of the “shackles of historicism” would if accepted by woodturners largely restrict woodturning’s role to producing a small number of turnings whose forms were composed of cylinders, cones and spheres. These are demanding, but boring, to turn by hand. Modernism has also been misinterpreted as a means to ruthlessly minimise cost by applying modern materials and techniques and by stripping away all decoration and ornament. Figures 1.4 to 1.6 illustrate this loss of delightful detailing.

Figure 1.4     A late 19th-century cottage rich in delightful detailing in Goldsmith Street, Goulburn, New South Wales.

Figure 1.5     Another view of the cottage shown in figure 1.4. Notice the turned veranda posts, gable finial, pilarettes, drop finials and patera. Alas the finial fixed on top of the gate post is recent and crudely designed, and the tops of the pickets aren’t turned, but moulded.

1.2.2 The influence of suppliers

Woodturning suppliers sensibly aim to keep selling to us, and in increasingly-greater volumes. One proven way is to promote new equipment which makes turning easier, an objective which I fully support.

A recent example of such new equipment is the sets of carbide-tipped scrapers introduced in about 2015. These tools do allow you to turn without having to suffer “the drudgery of sharpening” or having to spend a few tens of hours to achieve competence in the conventional techniques. What the advertising for these tools omits is that their use restricts a turner’s vocabulary of forms, lengthens the time to turn a design, and also requires more sanding. These disadvantages are however less significant to bowl and vessel turners than turners of useful items which are often spindles or incorporate them. Therefore promoting these tools must have favored a relative expansion in non-useful turning.

Figure 1.6     A 2020 version of a colonial cottage without any delightful detailing. The veranda posts are left-square, there aren’t any pilarettes, the barge boards are narrow, and there isn’t a finial on the gable end where the barge boards meet.

1.2.3 The misbelief that the range of useful turnings is small

Some turners complain that the range of useful turnings is very limited. This book’s projects may partially dispel that belief, but represent only the tip of a very large iceberg. There are many other sources of ideas for useful turnings if you’re prepared to search. Figure 1.7 illustrates just one source—the criticism that some of the uses listed are obsolete is valid, but not necessarily critical.

1.2.4 Wood supply and properties

Wood is becoming relatively more expensive, and the range of available species is declining as is the supply of the straight-grained wood preferred for many useful turnings. In contrast, bowls and vessels can be produced from no- and low-cost found wood.

The decline in professional turning is in part because wood was earlier the only feasible material able to fulfill particular uses. Now these and other uses can be satisfied more cheaply by using materials which do not occur in nature, notably plastic. These substitute materials can also be more practical: wood doesn’t fare well in dishwashers.

1.2.5 Useful turning is perceived as less creative and of lower status

By the early 19th century artists and their patrons had persuaded society that art really consisted of the Fine Arts which stimulated an emotional response and even edified behavior, and craft which had more mundane ambitions and consequences. This concept remains powerful today. Hence David Regester’s rueful comment: “the idea that the spindle turner [typically a producer of useful turnings] is an inferior beast to the bowl turner [a supposed creator of Fine Art]”.5 Not surprisingly, fewer aspire to be an “inferior beast”.

1.2.6 Woodturning skills

Another statement from Michael Dunbar:2

Modern turning also differs from old-time turning in that turners no longer make large numbers of the same object. In other words they do not do a lot of duplication.

Exact duplication is undesirable if you’re a turner of Fine Art, but there are two largely-true beliefs which discourage some from attempting useful turning:

• It can require some of the equipment and skills used in cabinetmaking and/or joinery. (Fortunately the growth in woodturning clubs and other communal woodworking facilities including Mens Sheds and SheSheds has improved access to these for turners who don’t have the necessary other woodworking equipment themselves.)

• It requires a greater range of turning competence than does non-useful turning.

Is it difficult to achieve competence in the conventional turning techniques? Dale Nish in his book Creative Woodturning seems to think so because he states that the cutting method “can be learned only with much practice and patience on the part of the learner. . . The personal satisfaction and sense of achievement derived from a mastering of the cutting method is enjoyed by only a few master woodturners. This goal is something the beginner might set for himself.”3

But go back in time, and you’ll find that turning was regarded as a low-status, low skill trade: “The turning lathe was, and still is, despised as unworthy of a skilled worker”.6 This statement by Gustav Ecke is too damning, but it is true that hand woodturning is not among the most difficult of hand skills. It does not require the high innate artistry of figurative woodcarving, nor the cabinetmakers’ ability to use a large range of machines and hand tools to achieve snug fits. Therefore I believe that Nish exaggerates the difficulty of achieving the level of turning competence required for success in useful turning.

How long does it take to acquire a basic range of turning skills? If you don’t have any bad turning habits to unlearn and the teaching is sound, in my experience it’s about 20 hours of tuition and 20 hours of disciplined practice. Obviously, improvement will continue thereafter, but that 40 hours should provide a sound foundation on which to build greater speed and sureness. Alas, only a minority seem to be prepared to make that commitment. It is true that for many turning is a pastime or a social activity, but should that preclude the initial commitment of a mere 40 hours for a hobby which might be pursued for decades? Perhaps because the true situation isn’t explained to them, beginners mistakenly believe that all-round turning competence is beyond them.

Figure 1.7     A list of items to turn published in 1881. Many of the uses are no longer relevant, but new items have since been invented; for example the CD and DVD markers in chapter 10. The list is scanned from: Holtzapffel, John Jacob. Hand or Simple Turning. New York: Dover Publications, 1976, pp. 458 and 459. (Originally published in 1881.)

Malcolm Gladwell in the second chapter of his popular 2008 book Outliers opined that to fulfill a person’s potential for demanding activities such as computer programing, violin playing to concern standard, lawyering, etc. needs about 10,000 hours of practicing, equivalent to 5 year’s full-time.7 Woodturning is a far less demanding activity, and therefore much less than 10,000 hours is needed for the enthusiastic amateur to achieve competence.

Two factors which Gladwell doesn’t properly cover are:

• The asymptotic nature of acquiring skill through instruction and practice. (An asymptote is a ‘straight line which is approached more and more closely by a curve, but not met by it.) As figure 1.8 illustrates, acceptable competence can be achieved in only a small proportion of the time needed for mastery.

• Learning and practicing inferior rather than optimal techniques ensures that only partial competence can be achieved. To later achieve high competence would require ingrained suboptimal techniques to be “unlearned” before the optimal techniques could be learned.

Figure 1.8     The asymptotic nature of acquiring woodturning expertise.

Tuition

Woodturning involves manipulating a sharp edge and usually an adjacent bevel against wood moving at high velocity. Turning is peculiar that the risk of a catch can only be reduced by increasing one’s turning competence, not by taking more but thinner cuts. And a person’s turning competence is strongly related to the quality of the techniques learnt and to the commitment to continue to replicate them.

Teachers typically teach the techniques which they themselves use. These techniques may not be optimal. I doubt that there is an international consensus on which techniques are optimal and their exact details. Further, there is a reluctance to objectively compare the conflicting techniques promoted by different turning teachers.

There may also be a shortage of sound tuition in the full range of basic turning techniques. Much of the tuition advertised is focussed on turning bowls and vessels. It follows that those who thus achieve competence in the limited range of turning techniques usually associated with bowl and vessel turning will tend to avoid attempting designs which require competence in other turning techniques. If there is to be a resurgence in turning useful objects, there has to an increase in the range of techniques taught by turning teachers.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and a columnist for the New York Times, in 2003 exposed a similar situation to that of woodturning teaching when writing about of all subjects English food: “a free-market economy can get trapped for an extended period in a bad equilibrium in which good things are not demanded because they have never been supplied, and are not supplied because not enough people demand them”.8

A related problem is that a considerable proportion of beginners don’t seek formal tuition. Instead they’re self-taught and/or are taught inferior techniques by a well-meaning person. This of course lessens the demand for, and therefore the supply of, quality teaching of the full range of turning techniques.

I have recently taught a class of typical amateurs: in their 50s and 60s, been turning for several years, sold a few turnings at markets, and in my opinion with little idea of how to perform even the basic cuts surely and efficiently. But by focussing on turning one-offs, avoiding difficult cuts, and using excessive sanding they were able to produce turnings which were admired. Their reaction to the tuition was revelatory: new potential opened up, confidence was gained. However this was accompanied by the realisation that most of their earlier turning experience had been a waste.

1.2.7 Design

You should design before you turn. To many turners design is an alien and onerous practice. They therefore favor non-useful turning in which informal designing as you turn is common even though wood which has been undesirably cut away can’t be restored to its former state.

Design is the important input—the turning should be the easy part you do at the end. But if your turning technique is poor, you’ll tend to neglect designing—why bother with it when you’re unlikely to be able to turn what you might design? However once you are a competent turner, the quality of your design greatly influences the quality of your turning output. For example the new gate-post finial in the foreground of figure 1.5 has been competently turned (on an automatic lathe), but is of uninspired design.

A misconception which favors the non-useful is that designing useful turnings is less creative than designing non-useful. Useful-turning design can be more demanding because it is constrained by the need to satisfy use in addition to other objectives. And usefulness is not incompatible with design excellence or beauty.

It’s true that many hand turners like to produce ornament. I absolutely agree that the ornament of many of this book’s projects is historic in style. But once a design, a style or a design feature is invented, it instantly becomes historical. Is it important whether the invention occurred a day, a year, a century, or a millennium ago? Many of the notable wooden bowls and vessels turned in recent decades have forms resembling examples produced in antiquity in other materials, but this doesn’t seem to be regarded adversely.

The reality of design

It’s sad but true that we aren’t all created equal. Most of us don’t have the high innate artistry needed to design pieces of conspicuous originality and merit. Thus artifice and plagiarism are a feature of some non-useful turnings. In contrast, a useful turning may resemble earlier examples, may have to if usefulness is to be retained, but because it is not attempting to be original, accusations of plagiarism are much less likely, relevant or important.

Even copying, unless absolute exactness is specified, can be an exciting design challenge. A tweak here, a millimeter there, can transform a stolid design into one which has life.

1.2.8 The demand for useful turnings

An important factor which I have so far ignored is that the potential demand for useful turnings is far greater than that for non-useful, and could be better exploited.

For most turners sales are of no or little importance; they keep their turnings or give them away. My experience is that most recipients of free turnings would prefer that they were useful. And even if that use is nominal or obscure, it adds an extra dimension of interest.

Look around the homes of non-turners and compare the number of useful turnings with the number of non-useful. I venture that you’ll usually find that the former is considerably greater. It’s true that the market for useful turnings has declined, in part because of the substitution of man-made materials for wood and the replacement of hand turning by cheaper processes. Therefore a hand-turned item is now a luxury object irrespective of whether it’s useful or not, and its design and making should complement that reality.

Many live and/or work in buildings bereft of aesthetic merit whose rooms before furnishing have all the visual interest of the inside of a cardboard box. Hence the desire to compensate by furnishing with posters, pictures, ornaments, etc. This creates an opportunity for woodturners. A useful turning, even something as mundane as chapter 3’s backscratcher, can become an object of comfort and affection.

1.3 CONCLUSION

My contention that turners would benefit from increasing their proportion of useful output is against the trend, but is it ill-founded? If you’re an amateur turner, you should treat turning how you want to. If you want to treat it as an occasional pastime, that’s fine. But to gain real enjoyment you’ll need to commit. That doesn’t preclude you turning what you want to: it facilitates it. But, as I hope the above has shown, that choice has likely been influenced by factors that you may not have been conscious of. I hope that this book will tempt you to consider increasing your useful output and, if necessary, increasing the range and depth of your turning skills and your interest in design.

1.4 GENERAL MATTERS