I started working on woodturning projects five years ago because I wanted to make rolling pins for lefse, a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread.
In researching my second book on lefse, Keep On Rolling!, I learned of a guy in the early 1900s who made more than 150 lefse rolling pins for Norwegian-American bakers in his region. I wanted to be like him — not just making reliable standard pins but functional pieces of art, using handsome hardwoods as well as woodturning tools and techniques.
That’s what I’m doing today, along with four other members of the Minnesota Woodturners Association. I sell these pins online and at markets, and give some away to friends.
There are two overriding reasons why I turn wood:
- I enjoy discovering the astonishing beauty in a chunk of wood and the artistic talent I never knew I had.
- I love the reaction when I give someone something I made. Let the wood do the talking and watch the faces light up!
What Is Woodturning?
Woodturning is a form of woodworking involving a lathe. With other kinds of woodworking, the wood is stationary and the tool moves to create cuts. In woodturning, the lathe turns the wood on its axis at high revolutions per minute while relatively stationary special cutting tools on a tool rest do the work.
A wood lathe allows woodturners to create all kinds of objects, from bowls to stair railings to chess pieces to musical instruments.
History of Woodturning
The art on monuments in ancient Egypt offers the first recorded instances of spindle turning. These illustrations showed a strap a helper used to rotate the lathe while another worker cut the wood.
The ancient Romans, Chinese, Persians and Arabs had their own variations of the lathe. Early lathe workers would sometimes hold cutting tools with their bare feet while powering the lathe with their hands.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, woodturners in England employed the master-apprentice system in turning shops, where they crafted cups and bowls as well as detailed tables, chairs and staircases. In Germany and Russia, woodturning was concentrated in villages that specialized in turning toys.
In the U.S., woodturning was part of the industrial arts curriculum in public schools, often a prerequisite for furniture-building classes. In the 1970s, interest in hobby woodturning in the English-speaking world flourished, reviving all things woodturning.
