” Beginning from the bed post, I wrought at the bed head till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold, silver and ivory”.

The early use of wood veneers for decorative purposes dates to ancient Egypt. The Pharaohs were familiar with chairs and chests that incorporated thinly sliced sections of contrasting woods and semi precious materials assembled in geometric patterns. The definition between marquetry and inlay often engender confusion. All marquetry can be described as inlay because each individual component can be said to be ‘inlayed’ into each other. Conversely, true inlay can never be defined as marquetry as it is composed of segments in which a space is first chiselled into the solid ground to be then filled with a piece cut to fit. Intarsia panels come into this category.

Roman marquetry

The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, tells us in book 16:

”the wood of beech is easily worked – cut into thin layers of veneers, it is very flexible, but is only used for the construction of boxes and desks. The wood of the holme oak is cut into veneers of remarkable thinness, the colour of which is far from unsightly. The best woods for cutting into layers are the terebinth, varieties of maple, box, palm, holly, root of the elder and poplar. In order to make a single tree sell many times over, laminae of veneer have been devised; then after all this, man must go and seek his materials in the sea as well! For this purpose he has learned to cut tortoise (turtle) shell into sections; and of late, in the reign of Nero, there was a monstrous invention devised of destroying its natural appearance with paint, making it sell at a still higher price by successful imitation of wood”.

So here we have the Romans nearly two thousand years ago, not only producing economically inspired veneered furniture, but also introducing imitation wood effects that out do the real thing.

Sorrento ware

Today, the Italian town of Sorrento, for the time being, is the centre of a thriving marquetry industry. I say at the time being because on a recent visit and talking to some of those involved, it appears that it is becoming more difficult to engage the young’s interest in following this traditional craft. Since the early 19th century highly skilled Sorrento practitioners have created a vast range of inlayed and marquetry work, it has even acquired its own descriptive title: Sorrento ware. This can range from huge marquetry wall panels like those in Sorrento Cathedral to delicately stunning musical boxes.

Marquetry in England and France 

Until the last quarter of the 17th century the use of veneers in England was one of restraint, usually restricted to simple inlayed decoration on chests and dressers. All this was to change with the arrival to England of William of Orange to rule jointly with his wife Mary in 1689. Marquetry as a complete art form was introduced into England by the artisans who accompanied William and his court to London and made an immediate impact on chest/carcase type furniture and long case clocks in particular.

The zenith of marquetry was in the late 17th and early 18th century France, where the craft reached the status of high art through generous royal patronage. André Charles Boulle was in the vanguard of the French movement. By 1672 he was ensconced in the royal workshops of Louis XIV. Boulle supplied much furniture to the palace of Versailles.

His name lives on today in ‘Boulle work’, intricate marquetry that includes the use of silver, brass, pewter, tortoise shell and ebony (see photo, right). Boulle’s technique was similar to that used all over Europe at the time, known as ‘cut and counter cut’. A packet was made up of, say, ebony veneer and sheet brass in equal amounts and was then cut using a marquetry horse and fret saw (later to become united and referred to as a donkey!) The packets were then separated, and the individual components reassembled to produce contrasting panels, e.g.; brass inlaid into ebony and ebony inlaid into brass, both panels would have been used but on different articles.

As you can see, the story of marquetry is a long and complex one and I have only just scratched the surface in telling this tale. It is a journey I have enjoyed and wish you all a similarly fruitful trek through your chosen walk with wood.

Marquetry photos and illustrations

For more photos and illustrations from the history of  marquetry please visit the Marquetry Gallery on this website.

Glossary of marquetry terms

Bandings

Lengths of decorative strips made up of contrasting woods cut to various profiles and supplied in a variety of widths in one metre lengths. Used to frame or outline veneered panels. Producing bandings is the job of a specialist. (See cross-banding)

Boulle work

Marquetry consisting of a combination of materials e.g. chosen from pewter, brass, silver, tortoise (turtle) shell, ebony etc. French cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle 1642-1732 perfected this art.

Book/Mirror matched

Using consecutive leaves of veneer turned over as in ‘opening a book’.

Book/Mirror matched

Using consecutive leaves of veneer turned over as in ‘opening a book’.

Backing-off

Applying a backing tape to the reverse side of a veneer ‘packet’ whilst cutting is in progress to give support to elements that may otherwise ‘break-out’ from the back.

Cut and counter cut

Method of cutting marquetry using a fretsaw, usually via the marquetry donkey or horse. A ‘packet’ of equal numbers of (for instance) light and dark veneers is fret-cut, the contents then dissembled and rearranged into a design of contrasting veneers.

Cross banding;

Wide strip of straight grained veneer applied at right-angles to the main panel, usually cut and applied by the veneer matcher. Used to ‘frame’ the outer edge of veneered panels, often in conjunction with decorative bandings.

Feather matching

Using straight grained veneer to produce a chevron effect.

Intarsia

Early technique whereby thick saw-cut veneers are individually inlaid into a solid wood ground, developed during the Italian renaissance.  The term is used today in Italy to describe marquetry. It is also used today to describe designs (usually pictorial) made up of shaped solid wood permanently assembled jig-saw fashion.

Inlay

True inlay is where individual veneer sections are inserted into a solid wood ground or ‘inlayed’.

Knife-cut

Veneer produced on a large machine where the solid log is sliced with a large knife, typically .7mm thick

Log or Flitch;

Term used to describe a complete log that has been converted into veneers where the veneer leaves are tied in ‘bundles’ of 32 and remain in the order in which they were cut until ready for use.

Marquetry

The art of creating decorative designs using contrasting veneers.

Marquetry horse

Foot-operated pair of jaws incorporating a seat allowing the operator to fret-cut packets of veneers.

Marquetry cutters donkey

Development of the ‘marquetry horse ’dating to c1780, now incorporating a fixed arm to support the fretsaw frame and allowing more accurate work to be achieved.

On and off the line

Method of cutting marquetry using a fretsaw, usually via the marquetry donkey. This is the most skilful of techniques; it requires a number ’packets’ of veneers to be made-up representing all the different colours contained in the design. Duplicates of the paper design are printed to allow a section of each design element to be cut out and applied to the appropriate ‘packet’. Each of the adjacent edges of the design is then cut, one edge on the line of the design, the other just off the line, thus ensuring a perfect fit!

Paterea

Usually small self-contained marquetry elements of geometric outline, often containing a classical motif within, e.g. a shell, flowers, urn etc.

Packet

‘Sandwich’ of veneers held together using fine ‘veneer pins’ and paper tape.

Quarter matched

A veneered panel made up of four consecutive veneers each aligned as in ‘book matching’ but creating a panel consisting of a leaf of veneer at all four corners.

Rotary cut

Veneer produced on a large machine where the solid log is rotated against a large stationary knife ‘pencil sharpener’ fashion.

Saw cut

Veneer produced by sawing, originally by hand and subsequently sliced using circular saws. Saw-cut veneer is thicker than knife/rotary cut.

Stringing / lines

One metre lengths of small square section solid wood often used in conjunction with cross banding to provide a thin line of contrasting colour. Boxwood and ebony are the most commonly used woods.

Seaweed marquetry (also known as arabesque marquetry). Very fine and delicately scrolled marquetry popular at the beginning of the 18th century; probably the most difficult of all marquetry forms to execute.

Sand shading

Dipping appropriate elements of a marquetry design into hot sand to scorch it, so achieving a three dimensional effect.

Veneer

A very thin sheet of wood

Veneer matching

Creating a decorative panel consisting of veneers held together using gummed paper tape prior to ‘pressing’ onto a board or ‘ground-work’. The completed veneer sheet is referred to as a ‘lay-on’.

Veneer hammer

Not really a hammer but a short handled tool with a head fixed at right-angles, used for squeezing out excess glue whilst hand-veneering.

Window method

Marquetry created using a ‘waster’ upon which the design is applied and from which each element of the design is individually replaced with a contrasting veneer.

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.

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

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

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 continuos 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 (1m) 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

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

I left school in 1957 aged 15 years with notions of being an archaeologist or naturalist, or even a film cameraman, but with not one qualification to my name. My furniture-making farther said that I had no choice but to seek a job in the local furniture industry. There has been such an industry in my home town of High Wycombe (35 miles north of London) for over 200 years so it seemed perfectly natural, although not very exciting, to follow in my father’s footsteps.

Working for Castle Brothers

Castle Brothers was a large concern manufacturing typical post war furniture with modernist clean lines, furniture designed with what the machine could produce rather than what a craftsman could achieve. I remember white coated men with clipboards and stop-watches taking an intense interest in the minutiae of a workman’s movements at the machine or assembly bench, and being cursed by the employee under his breath. This was a revelation to me: school didn’t seem so bad after all!

Part of the firm’s out-put was veneered cabinets and in retrospect, I was fortunate to be placed in the veneer shop. The veneers were bundled in long packets (or irregular packets if the veneers were burr, crotch or curl) of 32 sheets tied with string at each end and in sequential order just as they had been sliced on the manufacturers veneer cutting machine. It was normal practice to purchase the whole ‘log’ or ‘flitch’, in other words a whole logs worth of veneer, tied in manageable packets. Most of the veneers were obtained from London dealers, most of who both cut their own, and imported veneers. Rio Rosewood from South America was always imported ready cut giving added value to the country of origin, as was Canadian Maple and Australian Walnut.

After soaking in large vats of water to soften the logs the veneers were either ‘sliced’ or ‘peeled’ on huge machines. Sliced veneers were just that, with the log firmly secured, a super-sharp heavy-duty blade slowly converted the solid log into thousands of thin slices of veneer, the average thickness being .7mm thick. Peeling was where a log was rotated against a blade (similar to a giant pencil sharpener) producing continuous sheets of veneer that was then guillotined to width. Each method produced a different grain configuration with much of the rotary cut material going for plywood production. Veneers are a very efficient and cost effective way to utilise rare, exotic and expensive timber as a little goes a long way. Prior to the machine produced veneer, they were ‘sawn cut’. This was both more time consuming and wasteful of material, the veneers were cut much thicker with as much again being wasted by the saw-cut in the form of sawdust.

I never ceased to get a thrill from ‘opening up’ a packet of veneer and to see the grain of a highly figured wood ‘move’ as each single leaf was turned over one by one like individual photographic frames of a movie in slow motion, it really was like revealing the heart of the tree.

For the first few weeks in the job, I was given the boring task of trimming the edges of veneered panels, although soul destroying, it was a necessary introduction into handling a delicate material. Instruction to bench work followed, this was the creative process, ‘veneer matching’, using boxwood rulers, steel ‘straight edges’ and razor sharp hollow-ground knives hand made from worn-out commercial hacksaw blades. I soon learnt how to use veneers economically whilst at the same time to their best visual advantage. Quartering, feather matching, cross banding, inlaying boxwood lines and fancy bandings, soon I possessed enough skill to produce chess boards in my spare time. This was an early source of extra pocket money.  Better luck still was being introduced to ‘knife-cut’ marquetry by a fellow employee who did this as a hobby. He showed me how to create marquetry pictures of landscapes and birds using the ‘window’ method; this was a revelation and appealed at once to my artistic instincts.

The window method is the one usually adopted by hobbyists and involves using a ‘waster’ veneer on which the design is applied; it must be of a variety that is easy to cut with a sharp pointed knife. Put simply the method is this; one by one each separate element of the design is replaced with a veneer of appropriate colour and grain. The term ‘window’ reflects each individual aperture cut out with the knife before the chosen veneer is placed underneath to be traced and cut out. It is then inserted into the waster and taped into position; this is continued until the whole waster/design is replaced with artistically chosen contrasting veneers.

Within two years Castle Brothers ‘went bust’ and I found employment doing simple veneer work in a small village chair factory, ‘Cherry Tree Chair Works’. This wonderful little firm was working in the ‘dark ages’ using methods that even then were virtually confined to the furniture history books. Suffice to say, this business also met its demise whilst I was there and it was time to move on once more, this time to work in a long established veneer panel company called Richard Graefe, established in High Wycombe C1847 by a German émigré.

The Marquetry Cutter’s Donkey

It was here that I received my first introduction to commercial marquetry, work that was produced using the ‘marquetry cutter’s donkey’. The donkey is a fantastic bit of kit! It incorporates a seat, a foot operated clamp to hold the work being cut and a horizontal fretsaw frame. It was fully developed by the 1780s and has not been improved since then. This horizontal fretsaw enables the production of multiples to be cut together, therefore making highly intricate work more cost effective, but still never really cheap.

The marquetry cutter’s donkey was developed from the marquetry ‘horse’, this being the seat and clamp portion without the combined fixed arm for the saw frame. The fretsaw was held separately in the right hand with the work being secured in the clamp and rotated by the left hand. The disadvantage of this was that accurate right-angled cutting was more difficult, but not impossible, as evidenced by the work of the 19th century Sorrento craftsmen from Italy who persisted in using the marquetry ‘horse’. Today the marquetry horse and the donkey have been replaced by industrial fretsaws.

In its heyday, Richard Graefe employed 24 marquetry cutters working at their respective ‘donkeys’ producing inlays for the furniture industry. Women were employed to assemble the marquetry panels and paterea. With the advent of the railways they also produced pictorial English scenes to decorate the Pullman coaches. However, the aesthetic taste of post war Britain was moving away from fussy, over ornamented design, woodcarvers were having a difficult time and there was little enthusiasm for old fashioned decoration such as marquetry, and Richard Graefe were moving with the times.

Furniture restoration

Fortunately the firm retained one traditional marquetry cutter, Ken Lindsey, from whom I received some basic instruction. It was during this time that my interest in furniture history developed resulting in a sideline of restoring antique furniture and specialising in the repair of marquetry, it made sense to capitalise on these specialist skills. Furniture restoration will never be an exact science as each job is unique; marquetry probably presents more challenges than most woodworking disciplines such as, say, polishing or carving. One has to develop knowledge of timber species used at various periods and of course to be able to identify them and to understand their individual working characteristics. A ‘feel’ for the style of any given piece of furniture and the methodology of the artisan who created it are of utmost importance if new work is to blend in with the old.

‘Hand veneering’ is a technique rarely encountered today. In the 1960s Ken Lindsey instructed me in this; it can be a rather messy job of applying veneer unless great discipline is maintained. An understanding of the way veneer swells and stretches when in contact with water and the hot ‘animal’ glue (also known as Scotch, slab, pearl and ‘hoof and horn’ glue), and the movement that can take place as it dries is essential.  The veneer ‘hammer’ used to squeeze out excess glue would normally be made by the user. Its use required dexterity. With the veneer hammer held in one hand whilst the other applied a warm clothes to iron to the veneer to maintain the glue in a liquid state, its efficient use came only with a lot of practice. Hand veneering was not only used for applying plain veneers but also for quartering, cross banding and the like.

Learning from Andrew Oliver

My restoration work brought me into contact with my marquetry mentor, the late Andrew Oliver. Here was the ultimate craftsman, a man of great intellect: if you asked him the time he would tell you how the watch was made! Andrew had studied the history of his craft and the artefacts associated with it, the differing techniques used through the ages and the social influences that affected them. He was equally able to cut panels of William and Mary seaweed marquetry as he was with the exacting requirements of the 18th century classical designs of the Adam brothers. In ‘the old days’ a marquetry cutter would serve a five year apprenticeship under a master who would school the apprentice in the ‘art and mystery’ required for a life times career.

How does one apply marquetry to a curved surface? Back then, for me, it was a case of ‘ask Andrew’!  Andrew (shown in the photo below laying out marquetry) would patiently explain and demonstrate different techniques to me as and when I enquired, then expand as to their development in history and where to purchase any special materials I might need etc. Little things like snipping off the pointed ends of veneer pins so that they would not spit the veneers when making-up a ‘packet’ for cutting. I remember his childish delight one day in telling me how he had worked-out the original method of ‘backing-off’ seaweed marquetry, and his keenness to share this with me. The art of ‘sand shading’, cutting brass, choice of fretsaw blades, recipes for toning new work down to match a time worn original, all this knowledge was shared with me.

Such generous mentors are seldom encountered today, I owe Andrew a great deal for his time and patience; it has stood me in good stead. It was Andrew who encouraged me to become self employed (free lance), a decision I have never regretted. Becoming unfettered from the factory floor provided me with the freedom to develop and use skills that were unavailable to me in a factory setting.  Today, apart from books aimed at the hobbyist marquarian there is little in the way of instruction available to those seriously interested in following this traditional craft as a profession.

Going freelance

By 1974 I was sufficiently established with my part-time antique restoration work and occasional lectures coupled with demonstrating at woodworking shows /exhibitions that I packed in the day job and went freelance; the best decision of my life! Since then I have been commissioned to create many one-off pictorial marquetry panels that have been incorporated in bespoke furniture. Much of this has been produced using a combination of knife techniques and input from the marquetry donkey. These modern day clients expect the finished piece to have a photographic quality; this can only be achieved using special techniques developed for the purpose. The commission that provided me with the most pleasure was a depiction of Victoria Falls complete with a buffalo hunt and eagles soaring above the mist: that piece took me over six months to complete. Another of my commissions, a marquetry panel of gorillas, all knife work, is shown below.

For examples of Stuart King’s marquetry as well as photos and illustrations from the history of marquetry, visit the Marquetry Gallery on this website.

Raymond Harvey, woodworker from High Wycombe

“These are my most important tools”, said my host, looking at two home made knives, one ground from a worn-out hacksaw blade, and an old ‘Surform’ rasp. I was standing in Raymond Harvey’s makeshift back-garden workshop, which reflects his general approach to his work, being a structure consisting completely of recycled materials. There, standing majestic in the midst of this ramshackle shelter is the most stunning four poster bed I have ever seen.

It is bedecked, one could say almost bejewelled, with the most beautifully coloured and grained exotic woods, all vying for attention. These are arranged in very precise geometric patterns reminiscent of the Islamic art of the Moors.

When asked about his apparent preference for the straight line Raymond pointed out that working with limited tools and equipment meant that introducing curves into his work was not practical. There is a small band saw used for converting stock and a pillar drill fitted with a sanding disc. Mitres are cut by hand using a mitre saw, then ‘cleaned up’ using a small belt/disc sander, that’s it! There is no jig saw, router or lathe on which to create that ‘third’ dimension, the curved line.

Ensuring the separate parts of the bed fit together

Simple carving is attempted using the knives, usually to cap the tops of panels to counter balance the otherwise linier approach, there are no carving tools in sight. The basic outline of these carvings is ‘nibbled-out’ using the band saw, after which the knives are used to finish the shaping. The Surform rasp is used to chamfer the edges of the raised panels. Asked about the process involved in producing one of his panels Raymond explained that he started with a sheet of plywood dimetioned to the finished size, and commenced from the ‘outside-in’,

“I never repeat a design, I like to create something different every time”.

He applies the first strips of wood to form a frame around the outside edge, and then fills in the remainder as he proceeds.

“I have no preconceived ideas” he said, “I do not draw a design on paper; all I do is draw a vertical and horizontal centre line on to the wood as a guide. Also, I do not work in feet and inches, I work using the printer’s measurement of ‘points and ems’, this gives me the perfection I look for when constructing my geometric panels. PVA adhesive holds everything together, and then, when I can afford It, I sand it all starting with 120 grit, followed by 240, 300, then finishing with 400 grit abrasive”.

At the time of my visit the bed was not completely finished, but I had seen, and stroked some of Raymond’s other creations and was surprised to learn of his simple recipe for achieving the superb finish that I much admired. One coat of raw linseed oil, diluted with four parts white spirit is wiped or brushed on to the surface and any excess wiped off. This takes some time to dry, but when cured is rubbed down with fine wire wool. Liberon Fine Paste neutral wax is then rubbed in and left for 24 hours, then rubbed-down with ‘wire-wool’ and buffed with a lambs wool mop attached to a power drill. This is repeated 7 or 8 times and can take as many weeks to complete; it is not for those in a hurry.

Construction relies on good mortice and tenon joints.

The frame-work of the bed is mortised and tenoned and secured using hidden screw fixings. Apart from the panels, the basic frame consists of solid Mahogany, much of which is salvaged oddments from the double glazing industry. Knowing how expensive exotic woods are, I asked how these were sourced and was told that most of them were off-cuts from a local electric guitar maker including some from an instrument made for Sir Paul McCartney. The species include; Ebony, Zebrano, Purple Heart, Walnut, Maple, Lemon wood, Wengi, Paduke, Lignum vite and Beech, there are approximately 30 species and nearly 10,000 separate pieces incorporated in the bed. Raymond said this had been a two year project and that he often works an 18 hour day, but there have been a few intervals of inactivity due to bad weather when rain water comes through the ceiling!

Being an orphan in his native Jamaica, Raymond was housed and taught at the Alpha boy’s school along with as many 7-800 others, the emphasis on teaching was on practical skills. First he learnt boot and shoe making, something that was in great demand at such an institution. After this he became an accomplished tailor, woodwork came next and was eagerly embarked upon until he was able to make, and French polish, reproduction Victorian furniture. The printing trade followed, this included the trade of compositor and litho plate making. Raymond also found time to play the trombone and baritone sax in the school band.

At the age of 21 one young Raymond Harvey arrived in England where he was confident that all these skills he had acquired would make him rich, he was wrong, there was a still lot of prejudice about in the 1960s.

“People judged a book by its colour he told me, but, they got it wrong, I was able to prove to myself I could create some beautiful things. The best thing I learnt about England was that each person is an individual, I did not know that! It did not occur to me that everyone is unique, I asked myself – if you are a unique person, how do you shine? Everyone out there has to shine, and to shine you have to be noticed. Some people commit murder and do bad things, I decided to create beauty, I will make anything in wood and it will be different, unique, like me!

The first work I did inside my house was an inlaid door in the hall, this was followed by completely panelling the kitchen, including all the units entirely with wood that was salvaged from sources such as builders skips”.

Today the whole house interior is decorated with Raymond’s individual approach in using wood to beautify his living environment. Carved figures incorporated in the panelling help to create a very special North African ambience. The fitted bedroom wardrobes are completely covered in parquetry decorated with symbolic ships, buildings and landscapes.

Raymond Harvey's wooden bed

From the outside Raymond’s Buckinghamshire house is rather non-descript and much the same as his neighbours, but enter through the front door and you are confronted with an interior one would expect to find in a large English country house. Raymond confided,

“I am the poorest person in the area but my house is like a palace, but, I feel my workshop is my palace, my heaven, I just go in there and everything just comes together.

I would like to teach and have written to many authorities including the government and the national lottery but no one wants to use my knowledge. I have special skills that I want to pass on to young people, especially underprivileged children, to show them there is something other than drugs and getting into trouble. I am willing to teach anyone but now I’m told that I am too old, at 63! I love England but maybe I will have to return to Jamaica to share my skills, I have a lot to share before I die”.

‘Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store;
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light.’

Lines written by the poet William Cowper (1733-1800) describing the plight of lace makers in his hometown of Olney, north Buckinghamshire. For the most part lacemaking was an occupation of the poor, mainly women and children, and although the financial rewards were low it often made the difference between independence or the workhouse.

‘Bobbin’ or ‘pillow’ lace was never more than a cottage industry but according to a petition of 1698 more than 10,000 people in England were employed in the trade.

The earliest records of ‘bone’ (pillow or bobbin) lace go back as far as the mid-16^th century. Charles the First is said to have used 994 yards for twelve collars and 24 pairs of cuffs, and the trimming of the king’s night-clothes required another 600 yards. There were two main areas of production in the UK: Honiton in Devon and the East midland counties of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. By 1770 the industry went into decline and in 1880, from Olney, William Cowper wrote ‘I am an eye witness to their poverty’. Bedford lacemakers in 1768 were said to be earning between 8d-10d (31/2p – 5p) a day. After a brief revival in the early 19^th century, machine-made lace put to rest for ever the romantic image of the lacemaker sat at her sun soaked, rose covered cottage door with just the jingle of her bobbins for company.

‘Bone’, ‘bobbin’ and ‘pillow’ lace are all descriptions of the same thing, lace produced with the use of many threaded bobbins on a pillow which is supported either on the makers lap or upon a special stand called a ‘horse’. Most lace designs required the use of dozens of bobbins at any one time, all suspended by their threads and woven in and out as the pattern dictated. This need for bobbins will have kept many specialist bobbin turners busy through nearly 5 centuries. The term ‘bone’ lace derives from the fact that many of the early (and some later) bobbins were turned from bone, often Ox or Mutton. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare wrote of ‘the free maids that weave their thread with bones’. In the mid 18^th century one could buy a dozen for a penny; in the 19^th century bobbins made of wood were about half the cost of bone.

It was the bone bobbins that often carried inscriptions, usually delineated by the use of small dots drilled and Coloured. Inscriptions were various, many relating to historic or local events such as a public hanging; ‘JOSEPH CASTLE HUNG 1860’. The friends of Castle’s wife held a party outside Bedford gaol on the night of his hanging and gave all the guests who attended an inscribed bobbin as a momento! Other inscriptions relate to religion, anniversaries and love, the latter probably being the most prolific; ‘KISS ME QUICK AND DON’T LOOK SHY’ ‘I AM YOUR LOVER MY DARLING’ ‘ I LOVE YOU MY BLUEBELL’ and ‘YOUR HEART OF OAK FOR EVER’. Bobbins with special inscriptions could be ordered at many shops while others were sold door to door by hawkers or were to be found at fairs and markets.

Charles Freeman, in his book Pillow Lace in the East Midlands states:

‘the production of bobbins formed a trade in its own right. Richard Kent, a ‘bobbin maker’ was buried at Olney in 1728. Joseph Haskins is described as a ‘bead and bobbin maker’ in 1830. Samuel Wright of Cranfield was a bobbin turner, pillow and lace horse maker, and lace bobbins were turned on a water driven lathe at Stoke Mills, Sharnbrook. Percy Keech, a Stevington carpenter, turned wooden bobbins (mainly Plum) on a 4 foot lathe’.

There does not appear to have been a ‘bobbin turners lathe’ as such but rather each turner used what was suitable and available to himself. On close examination of many bobbins it is evident that a great number were turned using some form of bow lathe. The evidence for this being small ‘centre’ indents remaining at each end where the wood (or bone) pivoted between the lathe Poppets (stocks). I have in my collection four large ‘Gimp’ or ‘Yak’ bobbins also said to be turned on a reciprocating lathe, but in this case produced with a pole lathe by a Chair Bodger from the Buckinghamshire village of Beacons Bottom. On other bobbins there is only one pivot point indicating that these were probably turned using a lathe with continuous rotation such as a treadle wheel lathe.

Apart from bone and the rare use of metal, wood was the most commonly used material. Timbers used tend to reflect those species indigenous to the areas of manufacture; it is unusual to find the use of exotic woods although these are extremely popular with contemporary lacemakers. Fruit woods, especially plum and cherry are common; Yew tree, beech, Box, Sycamore, Walnut, Ash, Birch, Spindle and Dogwood are among other hardwoods used.

Although the financial rewards were probably minimal I think many of the old bobbin makers must have enjoyed their work. One has only to admire the variety, inventiveness and imagination that went into these miniature works of art to appreciate that they were not only tools of a trade but designed to give both tactile and visual pleasure. Apart from ‘Honiton’ bobbins and some of the ‘Bucks Thumpers’ most were drilled at the base to enable glass beads and other ornaments to be attached by wire. These are known as ‘Spangles’ and provide additional weight to keep the thread in tension.

Some wooden bobbins were decorated with pewter inlays, often referred to as ‘Butterflies’. Pewter was also incorporated as captive rings and at other times inlaid dots and referred to as ‘Bedfordshire Leopards’. Some of the most attractive bobbins to my mind are those made from two contrasting woods, either joined length ways with contrasting wooden rivets or with a round mortise and tenon. The ‘Cow-in-calf ‘is normally of two differing timbers, these consist of a hollowed body in which a miniature bobbin is secreted and secured with a push-fit top or base. Aqua fortis (nitric acid) produced a mottled effect when dabbed on the surface of wood by staining the area a dark brown.

Perhaps the most intriguing of all bobbins are the varieties with apertures, within which are contained visible miniature bobbins, Wooden balls and beads etc. These are known affectionately as ‘Mother and Babe, Church Window or Bird-cage’. A few years ago I produced my own version of a ‘Mother and Babe’, it consisted of a glass tube with Boxwood top and base with a miniature bobbin (the babe) free to visibly slide up and down the main body.

Photos and illustrations of bobbins

For more photos and illustrations of bobbins and lace-making please visit the Lace bobbins gallery on this website.

This example of automata started out as being just a rat catcher and rodent but, having available spare space for extra cams etc, I ended up adding other moving parts. It’s called “Catch Me if You Can” and I’ve made a video to show you how it works.

“The northern part of the Gorky region (of Russia) is a single glorious expanse. A green carpet of water meadows spreads along the lower left bank of the Volga and beyond them stretch boundless forests. In autumn these forests are particularly beautiful: dense firtrees enhance the yellow -tinged lime and Birch; the luxuriant maple canopies turn purple and orange and the sun tints the venerable oaks with noble bronze”.

So runs a kaleidoscopic contemporary description of an area that includes the Nizhni-Novgorod region long famous for its colorful woodware.

A recent Russian writer describes his folk art as follows ‘the motifs of Khokhloma painting are both simple and poetic, consisting of floral and plain geometrical patterns. Flowers and clusters of berries interwoven with sweeping grasses and golden tendrils curve gently over the wooden surfaces. Some of these compositions are restrained, others lavish; but all reflect the Russian people’s love of nature and quest for beauty. Khokhloma ware derives its bright, festive character from a distinctive matching of scarlet, black, Silver and gold. This dignified and lustrous combination gives the woodenware an aura of great value. What is all the more remarkable is that Khokhloma “gold” is not real, but the ingenious invention of Russian craftsmen’.

To achieve the gold effect on wood is far from simple. First, the unpainted articles are primed and coated with drying oil. Next they are polished with powdered aluminum (powdered tin and more rarely silver were used in the past). The ‘silvered’ wares are then painted with heat resistant Colours, varnished and fired in kilns. The heat turns the varnish yellow, the ‘silver into ‘gold’ and mellows the vivid design with an even, golden tone’

The Khokhloma folk art, (named after a small village) has a long history with evidence going back to at least the seventeenth century. In a letter to his bailiff a certain boyar called Morozov issued an order in 1659 for the following. ‘One hundred painted dishes polished with powdered tin, both large and medium, of the very same kind possessed by us earlier, not forgetting twenty large painted wine bowls, twenty medium and twenty somewhat smaller’.

By the eighteenth century painted ware was being produced all over Russia but many found the original Khokhloma ware a hard act to follow, even today the best work comes from the traditional region. The majority of Khokhloma ware is turned and originally intended for use. The plainer pieces were used every day, even by the peasant community. The finest, highly decorated items were brought out for special occasions only.

The observations of a court physician, G. Rehmann whilst visiting Markaryev fair, the largest in Russia in 1805 give us some idea of what was being produced at that period.’ Among many other objects worthy of curiosity, I was often astonished by the great bowls of as much as one and a half arsheen (equal to 107 centimeters) in diameter turned from wood which did not show the least signs of cracking, in spite of the scorching heat and the strong reflection of the suns rays from the sand where they lay. There were smaller bowls than these with lids, which held up to forty smaller ones placed one inside the other’. Rehmann concluded his observations with, ’these are veritable examples of the art of turning’.

The popularity of Khokhloma ware was such that production had expanded to other regions to meet demand and led to the manufacture being highly organized. The Nizhni-Novgorod Provincial News wrote in 1855; ‘There is remarkable activity in the Khokhloma region, one village makes wooden blocks from which another turns bowls while a third village paints them’. Over five hundred woodturner’s workshops were situated in the Semionov district alone. This is an Interesting division of labour and an unusual example of mass production throughout a large rural area, how I wish I could have been there to record the process!

It is stated that many of the lathes, being water powered were set up in workshops along the banks of the small but fast flowing rivers Kerzhnets, Linda and Uzol, ‘hand’ driven lathes and others powered by horses also existed.

The output from these turneries was eagerly purchased by the peasant dyers of Khokhloma. ‘ These craftsmen lived in tidy, close-knit community’s and their premises were unmistakable: a dye-house smelled strongly of paint and burned drying oil and it’s entrance was always cluttered with baskets containing the finished wares. A wealthier peasant would own a large dye-house equipped with two enormous kilns, numerous drying shelves and a spacious cellar where there was room for ten people to work’. Men, women and children were involved in priming, coating with drying oils and applying the final decoration.

It is amazing that what started out as a true folk tradition over 300 years ago is still thriving and remains basically true to it’s roots, albeit on a more organized scale. Apart from Khokhloma ware most visitors to Russia will have at least one set of Matrioshka dolls in their luggage. These dolls within dolls have long been a source of fascination. The undoing of the main doll to reveal others almost ad-in-finitem has always produced wonderment and appreciation for the woodturner’s art.

The inspiration for Matrioshka dolls is said to originate in Japan. The Hakone region has been associated with Marquetry and ‘inlaid’ turnery for nearly two century’s (much like Tunbridge wells, England). Amongst the gift and souvenir items produced were wooden eggs in which smaller eggs decreasing in size are contained within each other. These came in sets of twelve or thirty-six. It is recorded that a Yumoto teashop owner was selling such eggs in 1844. Missionaries from the Russian Orthodox Church who had established a mission in Tohnosawa and visited Hakone during the summer took the wooden eggs home to their motherland as presents towards the end of the nineteenth century.

One can imagine the appreciation the Russian woodturners would have had for these Japanese works of art and how well the concept fitted into their own tradition. With their natural flair for ‘folk art’ the Russians have produced something that is totally identifiable theirs.

Further reading: ‘Khokhloma Folk Painting’ published in Leningrad by Aurora Art Publishers.

A traditional Chiltern Hills way of life ceased when Sam Rockall died aged 84 in 1962. The local newspapers announced: Samuel Rockall, the last of the Bodgers is dead.

Sam learnt the trade from his uncle, another Samuel; he was born in 1823 and clearly remembered the day he was considered a man by passing a test, to carry a sack of corn. This was how a child of the time was considered fit for adult labour. Sam used to recall his uncle’s stories about his father and life in the woods and on the Heath, thus providing a continuity of family tradition and oral history way back in to the 18th cent. Uncle Sam Rockall died in 1913 but not before imparting his skills and a strong sense of tradition on to young Sam.

In the early years of the 20th cent there were about 30 chair Bodgers scattered within the vicinity of Sam’s home busily feeding the veracious appetite of the High Wycombe furniture trade. Although there was great camaraderie and kinship amongst this close community never the less a professional eye was kept upon what each other was doing. Who was supplying whom and at what price? His account book for 1908 shows he was receiving 19 shillings (95p) for a gross of plain legs including stretchers. With three stretchers to a set of four legs this amounted to 242 turnings in total.

There was also endless discussion regarding the quality of timber from ‘this woodland or that,’ the state of the chair trade, the latest factory fire in town, or, just as important, the garden. Growing fruit and vegetables was taken seriously. Sam was no exception; he loved his garden and was very proud of his fruit preserves that would last his family throughout the long winters. Garden produce and money earned by the lady members of Chiltern households through lace making and straw -plait work made a significant contribution to the family budget. A bit of gleaning in the harvest fields and some poaching of the landowner’s game all made a useful contribution.

For the men it was the shave horse, side axe and pole lathe that earned the bread and so it was with Sam until the out break of WW1 when he was called up and private Rockall became company cook to the Machine Gun Corps. His recipe book still survives with hints on how to make a stockpot, bread and butter pudding and batches of 120 scones. After the war Sam returned to his beloved cottage on the Heath to live and resume his calling of working with wood, converting some of the very trees he played amongst as a child into chair legs.

At some time shortly after the war Sam decided to relinquish the pole lathe and change over to wheel power in the form of a treadle wheel lathe, something he was to continue with for the rest of his life. The workshop was conveniently by the side of his cottage with plenty of room for his lathe and equipment. Behind the lathe hung several dozen ‘patterns’, There was one for each style and size of leg, stretcher and spindle he ever turned. These patterns were in fact wooden tool rests containing marks and knotches relating to the required decoration of each turning style.

Being a perfectionist and one who preferred to turn by the bright light of the oil lamp rather than candlelight as preferred by some of his contemporaries during dark winter nights, he had this observation:

“Chair legs turned by candlelight should only be seen by moonlight”, or as they say in Bucks when referring to a full moon, under the village lantern.

Sam Rockall was far more enterprising than most in his profession, he developed a wide range of skills including Chair making, I’m not aware of another bodger who could also make the finished article. He never made chairs on a large scale but in 1924 his accounts include the following.

2 doz. small chairs complete & 3/10d per chair

6 arm chairs complete & 6/9d per chair

H.J.Massingham, a prolific writer on country matters refers to an armchair made for him by Sam Rockall in ‘Chiltern Country’ published 1940. The two men became firm friends and Massingham wrote quite lyrically about Sam;

“He can hardly be called the Sylvan deity of his Heath and woods, and yet he is a microcosm of nature, the genius of his place”.

“Things made for mans daily use by the practice of inherited craftsmanship are inevitable and yet incidentally beautiful. Beauty is the by-product, and in the same way the poetry and romance of Samuel Rockall are the by-product of his trade, his happy bird-like spirit and his life long devotion to his craft, his family, his countryside and his independence”.

He was not a man to do nothing; I can’t imagine him having spare time. If chair work was slack he would be mending coppice styles for farmers, sweeping chimneys or sharpening tools. In 1945 Sam was still finding plenty to do. Apart from woodturning his account book informs us he was doing some repair work for a local landowner including repairing a music stand, chest of draws, fitting new castors on a set of easy chairs, grinding a pair of grape scissors and putting a new handle in a garden hoe.

For chair bodgers there was also good business to be had selling firewood, much of it being the waste product from the business. For lighting fires one could buy bags of shavings from the shave horse, these could be followed by ‘chips’, the chunky wedges resulting from felling trees with an axe. Sam sold a sack of each for sixpence (2 1/2p). It appears Mr, Rockall also supplied bodging tools for in 1946 his book tells us:

Finding wood (Crab apple) and making beadle (beetle) 8 shillings.
1 pair of Beadle rings 6 shillings.
Two new wedges 6 shillings and sixpence.
Repairing hatchet 2 shillings.

Summer Heath is still a quiet place where today it’s peace is more likely to be invaded by recreational horse ridding and airplanes rather than the sounds of mans labour with saw, axe and lathe.

I will leave the last words to Samuel Rockhall’s Friend H. J. Massingham:

“When I left this time, he pressed on to me a sack of kindlings, a bag of nuts and a pot of his blackberry jam. One had to take them. Was he not a rich man? He is the wood-master. He has wood to burn, wood to carve and to turn, wood for furniture, what more could Sylvanus Rockall want? Surely he will climb to heaven up the tree of life.

Samuel Rockall’s bodging tradition was captured on film shortly after he died in 1962. His two sons helped in the reconstruction of his working life in the woods and his workshop. The colour film was produced by the furniture manufacturer Parker Knoll and follows the complete process using Sam’s own tools and equipment. A copy can be viewed by appointment at the High Wycombe Chair museum telephone: 01494 421 895.

There is nothing parochial about the International Turning Exchange (ITE); this is born out by the number of residents who have participated from many parts of the globe over the last ten years. For me an indicator of the programme’s great success was the number of past residents who chose to return to Philadelphia to repeat the experience. I see the ITE as a ‘melting pot of artistic creation’; dare I say, as unique for its time as was the 19th century English arts and crafts movement or the French impressionists! A prime mover in the world of wood-art.

This is some melting pot! I see the essential ingredients as; a group of artisans from a variety of cultures sharing a love of their material, which for the most part is wood. Collaboration, a sharing of individual knowledge, pushing artistic boundaries, listening to other points of view, or not, sometimes having to compromise, these are all features of the ITE programme. It has been a fantastic recipe for learning from ones peers. For me, experimentation is the key component. Experimentation with form, function, texture, colour, narrative and ’awareness of spatial dimension’ (yes, I just mean size) all play their part. The pieces’ emanating from the ITE decade, and their creators, is now celebrated in the sumptuously illustrated book entitled, ’Connections’. ‘Connections’ confirms the raison detre of the ITE.

Rather than the annual two month period, this special ITE reunion was for an intensive five days. The well equipped workshop of local furniture maker Jack Larimore was generously made available,

The wood pile was the main source of raw material for the ITE residents. This wood was supplied by a nice man called Gus. Gus works for the city council removing unwanted trees from the street environment, and being a hobby woodturner has a good understanding of our requirements. He also took great interest in what we, a rag-tag looking group of world wide ‘woodies’ were creating from it.

Fellow Frenchmen Alain Mailland and Christophe Nancey were amongst the first to pick over some choice logs, they were each to produce very differing pieces. Alain mounted a large log of, I think Cherry, on the lathe. Most people would have found it almost imposable to imagine the wonderfully delicate, organic work that slowly emerged, after much turning, carving and steam bending, from that freshly felled log.

I think one of the things that attract visitors to woodturning shows and seminars is the expectation of seeing a diverse display of work, both to admire and for inspiration. There will be the studied work of those who commit every aspect of their design to paper before picking up a tool. Then there will pieces created by the free-spirits whose work will evolve almost as if they were created by Mother Nature herself. Alain Mailland and Christophe Nancey are definitely in the free-spirit brigade.

The ‘hollow sphere’ form is at the centre of much of Christophe Nancey’s recent work. Watching a lathe artist working, especially one who never repeats their pieces, often begs the question; do they know from the outset what the completed item will be, or is a truly organic process that slowly evolves? Certainly, we all kept a watching brief on Christophe’s sphere. Turning the hollow sphere was only the beginning, a blow-torch was used to dry the wet wood from the inside, it was then textured, painted, and adorned with small rose-tinted cut glass fragments and mounted on a tapered turned spike.

The French were by far the largest group of participants from overseas. They have a very strong woodturning tradition, in recent years this has provided the world of woodturning with some exceptionally creative craftsmen. Jean-Francois Escoulen epitomises this phenomena. Pre ITE he worked quietly in his workshop as a production turner, now he is king of the off-centre turners and travels the world entertaining lesser mortals with his magic. Jean Francoise (pic below) created a wonderful ‘sunflower’ ladle in Black Walnut whilst enjoying the friendly banter that is part of the ITE experience.

Marc Ricourt and I were both members of the 2001 residency. In common with American turner Mark Gardner of the same year, Marc draws much of his influences from the native artefacts of the Pacific Rim. Marc was quick to turn an interesting form out of some unidentified log from the pile, and after what Marc does to the timber I think the identity of the species is irrelevant! Off the lathe Marc is a gentleman, but turning can bring out his brutal side, how many turners do you know who attack their material with a chainsaw, and create a master-piece?

Israeli lathe artist Eli Avisara collaborated with Mark Gardner to fashion some textured and coloured end grain roundels. These roundels were incorporated as applied decoration to Mark’s antique inspired boxes. Eli would be the first to admit the roundel idea was inspired by the spinning tops of Bonnie Cline, but a little lateral thinking resulted in a new application for end grain ‘chatter’ work. Collaboration between artists/craftsmen often yields innovative work. This was an interesting piece, and like many others, would not have been created without the coming together of diametrically opposed creative minds.

New Zealander Graham Priddle produced a goblet, and then enlisted the collaboration of Australian Terry Martin. Terry took a head-only digital picture of all who were working in Jack Larimore’s workshop. He then printed the results and attached the heads to ‘bodies’ culled from a variety of glossy magazines and pasted them on to the vessel to produce a collarge, this was a great fun piece and much liked by the other artists. The work was duly signed by all the participants and sold well at the auction.

Normandy artist Laurent Guillot supplied each of the ITE participants with one of his specialities, a turned lace wood ‘Tube’. We were all invited to create something interesting from these. No one can pretend that this was great art, but great fun yes, it is interesting how each lathe artist approached decorating Laurent’s tubes in his/her own way.

Betty Scarpino worked tirelessly on a gilded ‘crescent’ piece. Betty is living proof that what may be perceived by some as a ‘mans’ world, is in fact all encompassing. Betty, along with a number of prominent women woodturners is an inspiration to the ‘fairer sex’.

Nothing lasts for ever and before long the ITers once more departed Philadelphia, many to cross the oceans that separate us. But! They’re ready I’m sure, that if the call comes once more, they will be back together with newer recruits, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the International Turning Exchange.

Visit the International Turning Exchange website.