Background

Turning is one of the oldest applications of using a power tool to shape wood (as well as ivory, bone, and soft metals), into useful and artistic forms, and goes back thousands of years. Beautiful turned items have been found in the ancient pyramids of Egypt, and the ruins of Babylon in what is today Iraq! The machine used is called a lathe, and is simply a device that grips a piece of wood and spins it around, allowing the turner to hold a variety of cutting tools to the spinning wood. In today’s market dominated by mass-production techniques, most of the turned items we encounter, from furniture to towel-racks, to kitchen utensils, to baseball bats and tool handles are exactly reproduced copies made in the thousands using computer controlled lathes from one hand-turned prototype.

I am a self-taught wood turner participating in a modern renaissance of using very old hand-turning techniques and modern, electrically powered lathes in which all the machine does is spin the wood; the tools are held and presented to the wood by hand, which means that each piece (even in a matched set), is entirely unique. (There are some really interesting corollaries and similar long histories here to throwing pots on a wheel.) I make many of the cutting tools I use myself as well, using very old (and somewhat primitive), blacksmithing techniques.

Salvage

In keeping with long and dearly held environmental ethics, all of the wood I turn is salvaged, which simply means that it was not commercially harvested. Most of my processes start with green logs destined for the rubbish-heap or the firewood pile. My sources include construction sites, storm-damage, city corporation yards, green waste recycling centers, and a growing circle of citizens who are familiar with my work and call me when they prune or remove a tree from their property.

Finishes