Mike uses a pole lathe to produce rounded items in wood, making him ‘the turner’. Wood that has been turned can be made into anything from spindles, candlesticks, spurtles to bowls and plates.

To turn the wood the wood turner needs, first of all, to fashion the pole lathe. The Lathe is used to secure a piece of wood, called a blank between two pins. A cord is wrapped around the wood, down to a treadle and up a springy pole. Pressing down on the treadle pulls on the cord and rotates the wood. Mike then carefully and skilfully uses sharp chisels to create the object needed.

This type of pole lathe has been around for a long time. Earliest evidence of pole lathes have been found in Ancient Egypt. The lathes were very popular with the Vikings and the design doesn’t seemed to have changed a great deal until Leonardo Da Vinci’s design of the treadle lathe in the late 15th century.

15th century wood turners had to be very organised. Wood is a difficult resource to get right. Its easy to find, especially in the 15th century, but not as easy to store and turn. The wood used is usually freshly felled and unseasoned, in other words straight from the tree. Although that sounds great, it smells divine, it splits and warps. The wood turner would usually need to dry the wood out slowly throughout a number of months, turning and carving a little each month. On warm days the wood dries very quickly and usually splits whilst being turned, after 2 or 3 hours of turning and expertly carving in the 15th century, that would have been a costly thing to happen.
One thing woodturners are not and that’s a bodger. Please don’t call our woodturner a bodger, he gets grumpy. These are totally different breeds of wood workers. Mike will happily demonstrate and show you all you need to know about wood turning in the 15th century.