Owen Lowe questioned, "Can anyone here name a pre 20th-century turner?"
*********************************************** Anyone here naming Arch is a liar!Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter
Nehemiah Wallington (1598-1658) (admittedly known for his journals, not his turnings)
Most art is as common as, well dirt and rocks. The first paintings were chipped on rock faces. Later paintings used ground up dirt and water with rock for a canvas. Painters still use pigments made from ground up rock and vegetable matter. Potters use clay - not as readily available as plain dirt, but probably as common as trees. Wool is as common as sheep and the first woolens were likely very utilitarian. Marble is as common as rock, where it occurs - Vermont, for example and the northern shores of the Mediterranean. Glass is now as common as dirt and made from it.
The only items you mention as scarce are still scarce - precious metals (and stones) and silk (pure silk from the worm).
Gee, I like woodturning but I don't have any illusions about it.
John
Owen Lowe wrote:
I'm still lucubrating on "lucubrating".....................Barry
Don't you think archaeologists in the future will dig up some of our earliest attempts at woodturning (which to us looked like almost perfectly formed ashtrays, tire knockers and potato mashers) and say to themselves. "What........ the....... Hell.......is......... that?"
Barry
No. Wood rots.
If that were always true we would not have "amber", or petrified forests
-- or petrified wooden items.
And of course we have fossils for the record..
And the lifetime depends on the climate to some degree.
Besides some archaeologists study the relatively recent past... Otherwise they would not have uncovered the Huron Villages near Penatanguishine (Lake Huron/Georgian Bay area)
Barry, it's already happening. I've been recently contacted by an archeologist working on Gauls villlage (so ~2000 or 3000 years old), who found what she thought to be the remain of a turned object. it appeared to be what remains when you hollow a bowl between centers, with the tailstock in place (ala Robin Wood): the core, which you remove just at the end.
Pascal
You're right, with rapid burial and then water to replace the wood with soluble rock, there can be fossilization. But this is extremely rare.
If that were always true we would not have "amber", or petrified forests
-- or petrified wooden items.
And of course we have fossils for the record..
And the lifetime depends on the climate to some degree.
Besides some archaeologists study the relatively recent past... Otherwise they would not have uncovered the Huron Villages near Penatanguishine (Lake Huron/Georgian Bay area)
Well that is the dream of many. Time to charge up my metal detector. Maybe 500 years from now they will have wood detectors, but I don't think so.
A house only needs one good salad bowl.
However in conjunction with other tools, then you're cooking with gasoline. But as sad as it sounds I think very few pure lathe products are useful. I am going through a pen making phase as most people will at least once. So I'm just giving them away. How many wooden vessels can a house withstand? Will I be destined for that. So many an evening I looked around for a hunk of wood just to turn. Just to make a handle for a file. All for the sake of spinning it off. If only it paid real money.
It is so damned easy to get hooked on. Then like a junkie your stopping at nothing to justify your woodturning habit.
Yes some people make good money on a lathe, and some people become rock stars. Maybe we should all be in the basement with a karaoke machine?
John
Barry N. Turner wrote:
Anyone who has ever placed a metal or plastic bowl of fresh popcorn in his lap knows the value of a wooden popcorn bowl. Then there are other dry service types, and the unique gift of an original....
No wonder they called him Peter the Great!
Arch
Good take on the neighbors! I also find the newly loaded to be every bit as uninformed as the newly graduated! It seems they want to have taste and class, but they just cant get over the fact that they have a few extra bucks in their pockets. I would rather keep a piece of my work than sell it to someone who would not appreciate it - even if they are willing to part with some money to buy it.....wait a minute, am I crazy - of course I will sell it to them, but I will jack up the price a bit!
Ray Sandusky Brentwood, TN (land of the newly rich)
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