The art of woodturning a bowl

Woodturning is a very old craft, known since ancient Egypt over 3000 years ago. Karl-Åke tells us that turning is also very old, and that the tool he uses to cut the bowl was already used in Sweden during the Viking Age, or at least the Middle Ages.

The first lathes used were so-called bar lathes, which worked by wrapping a cord around the lathe workpiece, which was then connected with a treadle and an elastic branch. When stepped on, the wound cord gives speed to the lathe head and when the cord is fully unwound, it is wound up the other way by sheer force. The turning piece thus changes direction with each step.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the more modern treadle mill became more common in the Swedish countryside as well. The lathe could be used continuously and the lathe head rotated in the same direction all the time. Then it was not many decades before the lathe was motorised.

But still in 1950s Sweden there were turning machines that used treadle turning. Like 69-year-old Johan Nilsson in Hjortardy, Röke. Östra Skånes Hemslöjdsförening says that around Perstorp in Skåne there were about a hundred active turners in the 1890s, all turning aspen toys. In the 1950s, there were only 4-5 left. Of these, Johan was the last to work his lathe himself.

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