Sound From the Past

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in the basement, working on my woodturning lathe. In particular, I’ve been working on a couple of chess sets. I do things in spurts until I get tired with it, then move on to something else. I will get back to a few paintings that I haven’t finished, but right now, woodturning feels just right.

I remember many years ago that our family was in a museum of some sort, I can’t remember where. It was when I was a kid. I remember there were rooms from several different 19th century shops, and you could press a button and hear sounds that would have been heard in the particular shop you were looking at. Workshops have always felt like home to me. My father always had one in the basement, and I have many fond memories of working on projects with him, and sometimes alone. Since we’ve moved to Rocky Hill I have the best workshop I’ve ever had, and it’s ours. We own the house (that is the bank does, for the next 29 years more or less). This time around I dont’t feel as though I’m just camping out for the next five or six years until it’s time to move again. 

So, my workshop is shaping up. Last night as I was turning the second king for my oversized South German/Czech chess set, which is related to the Vienna Coffee House style, I was listening to the sound of the knife as it was  cutting the wood and I realized I had heard that sound before. Not just recently, because I’ve done a lot of turning over the last few years. It was almost an archetypal sound, one that you can’t quite put your finger on but sounds so familiar. After a few minutes I realized it was one of the sounds I had heard in the museum so many years ago, that sound that stuck with me.

I discovered woodturning in high school. I made a few things, none of which I have now. I realized that I really enjoyed it.  After high school I worked in a pewter shop, learning how to spin pewter. Then I left a year later and went to college. Spinning is done on a lathe. I never quite got the hang of that, but it was interesting.

Then, many years went by until someone gave me a lathe, which is the one I use now. It’s almost meditational, because you have to focus on what you’re doing. The rule is that you never look away from your work when you have the tool engaged with the piece of wood you’re turning. One false move and you could have that tool stuck in your shoulder, or worse, in the middle of your forehead. One tiny slip is all it takes. So, focus is the thing.

I learned a number of years ago that my great grandfather (my paternal grandmother’s father) was an expert woodturner. I always knew that he had a woodworking shop where they made victorian trim for houses, and furniture. I have a piece that was made in his shop. But apparently turning was his specialty. I thought about him as I reflected on the sound my tool made against the wood. It reminded me that it is an old sound, the same sound that a woodturner would have made centuries ago. It was not a sound made by a table saw or a router. Sure, the machine was run by electricity instead of water or steam power, but it was an old sound that my great grandfather would have been very familiar with.

It’s funny how little things can bring me back in time. Time to go downstairs and make a couple more chess pieces.