Its been a bit of a slow week as kids were off school Monday and Tuesday and everyone is full of flu. I have managed to get up to the workshop for a bit of therapeutic turning every now and then though. Yesterday I turned a ladle for the Mary Rose Trust, I first visited the Mary Rose to study the wooden bowls there more than 10 years ago and have made many replicas over the years for use by school groups visiting the museum.

Here is the replica made from alder and below is the original.



These are quite a challenge to make, when I first cut a blank to make one and mounted on the lathe the weight of the handle had the lathe literally lifting off the ground. I learned to leave a short heavy piece opposite the handle to balance things out, this is trimmed off with an axe after turning. During turning the handle spins so fast it becomes invisible so you have to keep your hands well out of the way.


Edit, just adding a picture of a Mary Rose bowl and spoon.

German hewing technique this time.

Just to show the European hewing technique as a contrast to the Japanese, here is some video again from 2005 Kesurokai. The technique of hewing by cutting out notches, chopping off the block between and then finishing the surface with a wide bladed axe is the same as was used in Britain to create all our wonderful timber framed buildings. The marks of the axe are very distinctive and quite different to adze marks. Hewing with an axe takes a little time but in some ways it is very energy efficient. The timber does not have to be carted to a sawmill and then carted back again, traditionaly trees were grown to just the right size for building timbers rather than growing very big trees that then needed a lot of power to cut them up. As you can see with skill and sharp tools beams can be squared up this way quite quickly.

Kesurokai

I was just discussing axe design and use with folk on the British Blades forum and was reminded of one of the most wonderful exhibitions of woodworking skill I have seen.

In 2005 I attended the first european "kesurokai". This was an event inspired by a German carpenter journeyman spending time working with Japanese temple builders. In Japan the carpenters have started having events called kesurokai which translates as "planing together". It is really a skill share event, very similar to British and American blacksmiths "hammer ins". The prime focus was on hewing beams from tree trunks using a wide variety of regional techniques, it was interesting to see the differences between east and west European compared to the radically different Japanese technique. I took quite a bit of video and many photos and Nicola has just processed a section of the video for youtube showing the Japanese hewing technique.

Another fun part of the event was the planing competition where all the Japanese got out their planes and tried to plane the thinnest possible complete shaving from a 5 foot long 3" wide board. The resulting shavings were completely see through and thinner than toilet paper. I demonstrated bowlturning, there was a blacksmith hand forging a damascus knife blade and many more demonstration besides. The second kesurokai was in 2007 and equally inspiring.

Here is the youtube video I hope you enjoy it.

a bowl made by George Lailey

I was delighted to receive in the post yesterday a simple elm bowl made by George Lailey. For those that don't know George Lailey was commonly known as "the last bowlturner", he worked at Turners Green on Bucklebury Common near Reading until he died in 1958. Lailey was the last turner making bowls on a pole lathe and it was seeing his lathe and tools at the museum of English Rural Life that inspired me to learn the craft 15 years ago. Over the years I have met many people that visited Lailey and bought his bowls and several of them have been kind enough to give me bowls too. The bowl you see here is one which I first saw 5 years ago, it was bought by Jack Greene www.jackgreene.co.uk a friend who does historical costumed visits to schools. Anyway when I first saw it I recognized it as a Lailey and Jack promised to swap it for one of my bowls. We have met and talked about the bowl several times since but it was at the Re-enactors market last weekend when Jack finally chose a copy of my book in exchange for the bowl. We were both very happy.


Lailey always turned bowls from elm wood and the style is very distinctive, he did not make a range of different shapes and designs, one style of bowl varying in size from 3" to 20" diameter. There are a good collection of his bowls on display at the museum of English Rural Life in Reading. The picture below shows George turning a pair of bowls, the special thing about his method and the thing that initialy inspired me was that he saved the core out of the inside of a bowl to turn a smaller bowl. When starting from a large blank up to 5 bowls can be made one inside the other.


It took me several years to learn to make the special tools required for nesting bowls and to learn to use them efficiently, like Lailey I still make most of my bowls as nests but sell most of them individually. Ocasionally though I make special nesting sets with a matching design and with the grain of the wood running through the bowls. Here is one of my nesting sets.

Re-enactors market

I am just back from a long weekend selling my bowls. The event was a historical re-enactors market, these are the folk that you may have seen recreating battles from various periods or working in historic houses bringing history to life. That side of the hobby is called living history and particularly folk who specialise in the medieval, dark age or Tudor periods need authentic wooden items to eat from. Many people don't realise that from 500AD until 1500AD nearly everyone in Europe ate from wooden bowls and dishes. Whist a lot of pottery survives from this period it is mostly cooking pots, storage vessels and jugs.

Re-enactment is a very popular hobby and all those folk need supplies of all manner of things from boots and hats to swords and armour. Here are a few photos of some of the stalls at the market.






The venue is Coventry City's training ground and there are a couple of hundred stalls selling raw materials like linen and leather through to finished items. Quality varies from cheap imports from India to fantastic one off craftsmanship, and of course everyone tells the public that theirs is 100% authentic.

It's an interesting experience and I like it because these folk really use their bowls and appreciate them.

a new dovecote

It has been a busy few days without much turning. It was our son Ollie's birthday on Sunday so the end of last week was spent sorting his present out. Whenever the weather is fit he likes to climb out of his window and sit on the roof of the porch reading his books and watching the world go by. We decided to get him some doves for company. We found a lovely old dovecote, in Walsall and a nice chap that bred the doves at Blackburn so there were a few miles done and a lot of work to repair the cote and make brackets to fix it to the wall. Now we have to keep them netted in for 2-3 weeks until they recognise this as home before we can let them fly free.

bowls for theatre use

A few weeks ago I sent off some bowls for use in a theatre production and just got sent some pictures from the dress rehearsal. The bowls represent the 12 disciples and Christ, in this scene the dancer representing Christ is pouring water from one bowl to another and the plan is to add a little food colouring to give the impression of turning water into wine. Details of the productions here http://www.elastictheatre.com/?page_id=11


I have supplied a lot of bowls for theatre use over the years and most folk say they will send me images from the dress rehearsals but these are the first I have actually received.

eating from wooden bowls

Eating from wood is just normal for our family, so much so that we just don't think about it, and it always surprises me the reaction whenever I use pictures of us actually using the things. Ten years ago the BBC did a short TV feature on my work and included a brief shot of the family having dinner and people still mention it today. My book is full of pictures of medieval bowls and new bowls but the one image people comment on most is the one with the family sat at the table.

I have been making bowls full time now for about 13 years and I realised that whilst I often get messages from folk saying how much they enjoy using them I actually have very few pictures of my bowls in use. So if you have one of my bowls or plates I wonder if you could take a quick snap and email it to me? To start it would be great to collect a few images here but I would also like to start a gallery page showing lots of bowls in use, owners with their bowls and even pictures of any other interesting wooden objects that folk use in their daily lives.

So to start us off this was my breakfast this morning. The bowl is one of my standard porringers, I went through a phase a couple of years ago of making hand made paints with natural pigments, this is a blue which is common in Sweden where much of my inspiration comes from. My bowl is one handled, the dog chewed the other handle off one time when I had left it around without washing it up, rather than throw it away I carved it off and it still works well. The spoon is not one of ours, its one made by a dutch friend Jan Harm. We met on a course in Sweden and spent happy days carving spoons together so this brings back those memories. The cup is a kasa we carved from sycamore, it's a traditional design of the sami people and this one is copied directly from one made by Swedish master carver Wille Sundqvist. The water jug behind is by Svend Bayer, my favorite potter and another inspiration.

So if you could take a snap, if you have a photobucket account or similar you could post your pictures in a comment here or email them to me and I'll put them up. I have made close to 10'000 bowls and plates over the last 15 years and it would be lovely to see at least a few of them in their new homes.

oiling bowls

Well the porringers I was making 6 weeks ago when I started this blog are now dry and ready for oiling. I am often asked what are the best oils to treat wood for food use and have experimented with many over the years. Dry wood is like blotting paper and would absorb any liquid food you put on it, the oil blocks up the pores and makes it waterproof so that it is easier to clean. The important thing is that the oil should be one that cures or dries in the wood. This rules out common food oils like olive and sunflower which always stay liquid and can go rancid giving the bowl an unpleasant smell. One of the best oils is walnut, I used it for about a year and it works really well, it smells gorgeous, is not too expensive and easily available from most supermarkets or wholefood suppliers. I only stopped using walnut due to the potential problems for nut allergy sufferers. If I was treating an odd bowl for my own use it would still be my oil of choice but since I am selling bowls and many are given as gifts its just too complicated. For many years I used organic palm oil but I stopped due to environmental concerns. Eventually I followed the lead of folk who use woodware daily in Sweden and bought some cold pressed linseed oil. This is the most expensive oil I have used so far at over £5 a litre and some folk do not like the smell but I believe it does a very good job.


I heat the oil in a deep fat fryer and dip the bowls in, let them drain for a minute then wipe any excess off. I love this part of the job since the oil brings all the colours out in the wood and this batch of bowls from the old beech tree are particularly good looking. I am sure someone will enjoy eating their breakfast from this one.

a replica mazer

I thought it would be nice to post this replica of a medieval mazer here. I actually finished it a little while ago but it has been away at an exhibition and just came back, I think it is one of the best pieces I have made.


I first became aware of mazers many years ago when I saw some in a case at the British Museum. At that time I looked at them only briefly, I was passionate about the sort of humble wooden bowls used in everyday life and didn't really relate to these grand bowls. When I was writing my book on the history of the wooden bowl I knew I would have to cover mazers and returned to the British Museum and various others to study and photograph as many original mazers as I could. I was surprised to find that I now loved them. They are still very grand but not in the ostentatious way that 18th century craftsmanship can be, they still have a delightful freedom of workmanship common in medieval art.


Here is an original one pictured in my book "the wooden bowl", this one is engraved and the silver has a thin coating of gold.


Mazers are still the most highly prized turned wooden objects ever produced. Probably less than a hundred survive from the medieval period and the last one that sold (a late one dated 1547) reached £205,000. Making replicas has been an interesting journey, I work with a Sheffield silversmith Owen Waterhouse and copy the original techniques as far as possible. The mazer at the top of the post is made from a particularly special piece of burr rowan which grew close to my workshop.