Contemporary Writing and Other Media

On Ornamental Turning and Related Work

This Notebook will consist mostly of bibliography and links, since everything being written in our own period is still in copyright. (Unfortunately, very little of it is licensed through Creative Commons or other licensing encouraging responsible copying and re-use. It is therefore doomed to be lost as soon as its web hosting lapses, as it cannot be republished. Some fairly important material referenced here has already been lost (e.g., the Pledge & Aldworth Illustrated Engine Turning Reference is gone)).

• "A Short History of Turning," on the website of The Turners' Company (the Worshipful Company of Turners): http://www.turnersco.com/index.php/the-craft/a-short-history-of-turning/
• "Ornamental Lathes and their Accessories," in ten parts. Available on either his own website ( "The Craft," http://www.ornamentalturning.co.uk/the_craft.htm) or the S.O.T. website ( http://www.the-sot.com/craft.html). Here's my own summary of the topics of the ten parts:
  • Part 1: intro, definitions, Besson, Bergeron, traversing mandrel, overhead drive, cutters, drilling spindle
  • Part 2: ornamental cutting frames (horizontal, vertical, universal, geared)
  • Part 3: ornamental cutting frames (internal, eccentric, ellipse)
  • Part 4: ornamental cutting frames (epicycloidal, segment, rose)
  • Part 5: cutter sharpening, the goniostat, indexing, slow headstock drive, ornamental slide rests, curvilinear apparatus, spherical slide rest
  • Part 6: ornamental chucks (eccentric, rectilinear, ellipse)
  • Part 7: ornamental chucks (dome/spherical, pillar/pencil, combination dome/rolling-oblique, combination dome/pitching-oblique, oblique)
  • Part 8: spiral apparatus, the reciprocator, the geometric chuck
  • Part 9: the portrait or medallion lathe, the rose chuck, rose engine (rocking headstock), the rocking slide-rest)
  • Part 10: the geometric slide rest, the (combined) rose engine and ornamental turning lathe, the rose engine proper)
• "Shapes that May Be Formed on the O.T. Lathe," which is really a summary overview of much of the field; available on his own website ( "The Craft," http://www.ornamentalturning.co.uk/the_craft.htm)
• "O.T. Techniques: The Eccentric Cutting Frame," available on his own website ( "The Craft," http://www.ornamentalturning.co.uk/the_craft.htm)
• "The Ellipse Chuck" available on his own website ( "The Craft," http://www.ornamentalturning.co.uk/the_craft.htm)
• Drawings of the Elliptical Cutting Frame by A. S. Mounsdon (2006), available on Edwards' website ( "The Craft," http://www.ornamentalturning.co.uk/the_craft.htm)

Note: See also Martin Matthews' video, Engine Turning , which includes quite a bit on rose engines.

Thanks to the enthusiasm of several modern practitioners, there is finally a good body of information available on actual practices of Rose Engine and Straight-Line Engine work.

A list of names of makers of Straight-Line Engines (sometimes just knowing a name helps in research):

• Kenlock
• Lienhard
• Neuweiler and Engelsberger [Rich Littlestone has]
• Pear
• G. Plant

Note: See also Martin Matthews' video, Engine Turning , which includes quite a bit on straight-line engines.

• http://www.littlestone.com/
• http://www.metalwrite.com/
• http://www.argentblue.com/

This "Illustrated Engine Turning Reference" existed in two edition. The first edition has been archived more or less completely by The Internet Archive, www.archive.org and is accessible via their "Wayback Machine." The links don't always work quite right within The Wayback Machine, so I find it most useful to plug this in to its search:

http://www.pledge.co.uk/ref/images.htm

This displays a list of all of the times the work was archived between 1999 and 2006. Pick a likely archived version, and read away (you should end up with a page titled "Reference Contents" which lists the two dozen odd pages of the work). I think that most of these versions are identical; in this edition, the work was complete in the late 1990s.

Around 2007, "The Illustrated Engine Turning Reference" was revised into a second edition. The text of this second edition may be found via The Wayback Machine, but, regrettably, they did not archive the images for this edition.

Note: for a different, and perhaps more traditional, style of Brocade Engine, see the video, Engine Turning, by Martin Matthews .

Mike Fallows has published drawings and calculations for a two-plate vernier dividing plate for the Myford ML7 lathe on the Ornamental Turners International website: http://www.ornamentalturners.org/Resources/articles.html

If the ornamental turner's goniostat is of interest, it's likely that certain tool cutter grinders such as the Gorton 375 (I am fortunate enough to have one) and the Quorn will be of interest as well. If you're more familiar with conventional lathe tool bit grinding, note that most traditional ornamental turning and rose/straight-line engine tools were ground with no side or back rake; the top of the toolbit was flat. The goniostat, therefore, has no provision for grinding this surface.

Mike Fallows has posted engineering drawings of a goniostat on the Ornamental Turners International website at: http://www.ornamentalturners.org/Resources/articles.html

An unnamed user on the Ornamental Turners International site has put up three pictures of two brass goniostats from, I think, Mike Fallows' OTI plans in the Gallery (all three pictures are in the main page of the Gallery (not in an album); one of them spells goniostat "geniostat"). It's made of brass with a plastic protractor.

Ornamental Turners International site user "Geoffrey" has put up several pictures of his goniostat in the Gallery (search on "goneostat"). It's made of brass with a paper protractor.

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