Ornamental Turning Craft

How long has this been going on?

From the Renaissance to the Age of Enlightenment, ornamental lathes were used by the elite of society. Each machine was individually made with considerable time and expense. They were highly valued items that served nobility with both recreation and education. By the mid-19th century, with the production-style automated approach of the Industrial Revolution, the princely enthusiasm for the machine ended. During the Victorian Era, the high cost of ornamental turning equipment mainly restricted its use to wealthy scientific amateurs, who were often professors and clergy.

In the late 19th century, guilloché was popularized by the extraordinary enamel work of Fabergé and became a common decoration of precious metals found in everyday objects such as pocket watches, cigarette cases, pens and jewelry. It was also used for designing the patterns of banknotes, securities and stamps.

At the turn of the century, tinkering with electrically powered or motorized tools became the popular hobby of the mechanically inclined. By the 1920s, lathes became increasingly linked to metalworking and milling and less identified with arts and crafts. Interest in ornamental turning was further disrupted by the pressing issues of World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Ornamental turning was kept alive by a few individuals who enjoyed collecting and using the superb tools of Holtzapffel and other makers.

By the mid-20th century, the wood lathe was no longer associated with mechanized factory production and became a creative tool for the hobbyists and studio turner. In 1948, the Society of Ornamental Turners was formed, which fostered a rebirth of interest in the tools and techniques of ornamental turning. In 1976, Fine Woodworking published an article that introduced ornamental turning to the entire woodworking community. This, combined with two books entirely dedicated to the subject published in the mid-1980s, resulted in a surge of interest.

In the past ten years, ornamental turning has grown tremendously due to the Internet, which has facilitated locating and purchasing ornamental turning machines and apparatus, made classic books on the craft instantly available and searchable through Google Books, spawned websites detailing every aspect of ornamental turning, and enabled enthusiasts and practitioners to share photos of their work, process, tools, machines, and more.

• Expanded history of ornamental turning – featuring turners of the past and 19th C. makers of ornamental turning equipment

There are several additional sources to learn more about the history of ornamental turning.

One of the most interesting sources of ornamental turning history is presented in the book, Sovereigns as Turners, by Klaus Maurice, which details court society's fascination with lathe turning. Here are some revealing excerpts:

In the 16th century, when princes began to be interested in turning, attitudes changed: physics, which according to the ancients had been that part of philosophy concerned with the study of nature, now included mechanics, and the God of the Bible who created the world became the mechanic, indeed the first turner, who turned the globe, making it round.

Court society turned at the lathe: Programmed machines stood in residences from Stockholm to Florence, from Paris to Moscow, for princes to learn and for rulers to dabble in turning. The programmed machine was a source of great fascination for court society; it was the example and model of hierarchical order for the absolute monarchy.

The era in which the princes turned was fascinated by the programmed works of clocks, spheres, and automations in which the mechanical sequence was always predetermined, controlled, ordered, with nothing left to chance, and in which all movements functioned according to a comprehensible geometrical plan.

The fascination of mechanics lay in their regularity; everything followed their inventor's plan, the programme. Thus, the clockwork became analogous with the cosmos ordered by one God according to measurement and number, with a state ruled well by one ruler, with life dominated by one virtue, Termperantia, the virtue of moderation.

A definitive article called Ornamental Turning Lathes and their Accessories written by John Edwards, president of the Society of Ornamental Turners, is available from the SOT web page devoted to the craft. Here is an excerpt quoted from his introduction:

Complex lathes started to be developed in about the 15th century when the nobility of Europe commissioned and collected the beautiful wood and ivory turnings made on them. During the 17th and 18th centuries kings and princes employed the best turners and engineers to produce ever more complex machines and fantastic artifacts and many of the nobility took up ornamental turning as a hobby.

Following the French Revolution the centre of interest in this hobby transferred from France to England where it spread widely, not only among the aristocracy but later to the wealthy middle classes. This change was largely influenced by John Jacob Holtzapffel, an engineer of Alsatian descent who moved from Strasburg to London in 1792 and set up a lathe-making business that was to flourish until the First World War.

Other articles and websites that offer further insights into the history of ornamental turning:

• A Short History of Turning by John Edwards
• A Brief History of Ornamental Turning, by James Harris
• Ornamental Turning Center - OT History by Steve Johnson
• The Emergence of Ornamental Turning by John Wetherall
• Ye Art and Mysterie of Turning