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A visit with a wood turner

Writer's picture: Ivon HaywooodIvon Haywoood

I rolled to a standstill on Andy’s drive in front of the garage where he was tinkering. His garage is not a normal type of garage, this is a garage filled to the brim with lathes, turning equipment, timber, and all things woodwork. Andy Pickard is a retiree turned woodworker, more specifically, turner, and has successfully been turning and sustaining himself from this practice for many years now. He reached out to me in the summer of 2021 when I was traveling back from France and ever since I've been keen to visit. Amongst the dust, tools, and ongoing projects, stood; 2 Union Graduate lathes, a bandsaw, a small DeWalt arm saw, and most exciting of all, a floor standing 1800’s ornamental lathe, and hidden in the corner was an MDF-made rose engine. We chatted over Jam on toast and enjoyed a coffee in the sun. He showed off his impressive ornamental lathe, it's various and many different shaped cutters and he even showed me the ‘Gonio Stat', which, in case you aren’t well aquatinted with the world of Ornamental Lathes a ‘Gonio Stat’ is a honing Jig made for sharpening cutters with compound bevels. Yep. I’ve been excited to meet Andy, because turners are a dying breed, and not many have a Rose Engine or an ornamental lathe.


Andy Pickards workshop, and his Union Graduate lathe, on of my favorite industrial lathes. and he has 2 of them. His various chisels held on the wall.



Visiting Andy gave me the first chance I’ve ever had to see a Rose Engine. Rosettes are beautifully figurative wooden ornaments, usually used for embellishment on cylindrical boxes or other ornament pieces, and often made from hard timber like Box-wood or African Black-wood. A series of disks on the back of the headstock are held, each one with a different silhouette, there are the templates. When the machine is on and the spinning cutter is presented to the turning workpiece an individual disk will determine how the cutter, or the workpiece, will interact, using a pin that follows the disk. In turn, the work is carved by the cutter to produce a vast array of different forms. The most common form you might describe as a rose, hence the name, but the possibilities are almost endless. He told me that people’s busts have been sculpted on machines like this, and the size of the piece is rarely larger than the diameter of a can. This type of machine and practice is rare, and the tooling and equipment rarer. Once upon a time, being a skilled rosette user was a mark of nobility, class and wealth. Famously Queen Victoria turned her hand to these wonderful ancient computers. What was just as exiting as the rose engine was ornamental lathe, of which it's history is very similar. But instead of being made of MDF (his rose engine is a modern prototype of a mobile version that somebody had made) the ornamental lathe on the other hand is original, foot powered and made in the 1840's, it now sports an electric motor with differential and modifications that have come to it over the years. These are both fascinating machines, capable of producing forms that one might think could only be achieved by a very skilled carver. They are machines of engineering standard and perform almost impossible tricks. They can cut forms in an eccentric manner, elliptically, epicyclically. Either the work is held static while the cutter moves to create inclusions following a template, or visa vera, the cutter is static and the work moves. or for more effect both cutter and work piece move with each other. These procedures don't work using computers or hydrolics, but the work an cutter is manipulated by human touch and eye, following templates and under tension to create the regulate and irregular movements needed to generate something like a rossette. The closest type of machine we have in modern workshops to these today is perhaps a metal lathe with a mill attachment or perhaps a CNC lathe.

Here we have pictures of the orimental lathe, its impressive components are made of Iron and bronze in a beautiful display of 17th century engineering. its a precision piece of tooing and is still working beautifully today. adjustment on this tool is almost endless, and without working intimately with it i will never know its inner workings.

After a short chat about the things in his workshop he suggested we ought to go and visit his friend John (the bowler hatted wood turner). A short drive later and I was standing in another small shed at the bottom of a garden. Here John, who was the chair of the ‘register of professional turners’ was working on some fluted spindles for a staircase. We interrupted his flow whilst he was stooped over the spindle with his coping saw in hand, cutting the guidelines for the fluting. it was n impressive sight to see someone doing this, and not for show, he was doing it to fulfil a commission. there aren't many people who can carve fluting these days. His workshop, or shed, was small and had just one Union Graduate lathe and a few small bits of kit for general woodwork. I was amazed to hear that he had been working in this same shed for over 30 years, and had been successfully sustaining himself in this way too. As we chatted it came apparent to me that he was a highly skilled practitioner and had experiences in most areas of joinery and woodwork. From his work within the guild, he was awarded the title of ‘freeman’ by the worshipful company of turners, and from this, he is one of few people who can legally herd a flock of sheep across London bridge.


In these images we can see the hundereds of various different cutters and profiles that Andy owns, thee are the original cutters and profiles that came with the ornimental lathe, held in a classically made wooden box each cutter has a space where it resides. There is also the 'Gino stat' the Jig used for sharpening these cutters, a complex piece of tooling, capable of holding angles in 2 different axis, made of brass it will be used in conjunction with a flat plate and hoaning compound. these are fantasticle objects from another era worthy of being in a museum.

It’s amazing to see the passion for their practice still on fire, both of these gentlemen were more than willing to welcome me in and talk about what they do. the work they both produce is impressive, not least because of the relatively minimal set up and spaces they occupy. Having the insight into what they do from the perspective of a furnituremaker is that bit better, because when you understand what they are showing you and what they are talking about, there is a sense of satisfaction, not just for me but for the gents showing me too. These men are exemplary of people who are keeping alive a neich and they taught me a lot, I wonder what could I be teaching a young person when I’m 65 years old?


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