There are few things more satisfying on the lathe than turning "green" (wet) wood. When you present a sharp gouge to a spinning piece of freshly felled timber, you don’t get dust, you get long, continuous ribbons of wood flying over your shoulder.
But whilst turning green wood is a joy, turning a complex piece of burr into stable, sculptured wood is a technical challenge that requires serious patience. At Begat Woodcraft, our premium art vessels aren't made in an afternoon. They are created using the traditional "Twice-Turned" method. Here is a look behind the scenes at exactly how we do it.
Phase One: The Rough Turn and the 10% Rule
Burr wood is famous for its chaotic, interlocking grain. This makes it incredibly beautiful, but also highly unpredictable as it dries. If we took a wet block of timber and tried to finish an English oak burr hollow form in one session, it would crack and check into firewood within weeks.
To save the timber, we rough-turn it whilst it is still wet. The golden rule for this stage of artistic woodturning is the 10% Rule. We leave the wall thickness of the vessel at roughly 10% of its overall diameter. Because this wet wood is going to warp, twist, and move as it dries, we need to leave enough "meat" on the bone to true it back up later.
Phase Two: The Drying Process (Patience is a Tool)
Once the piece is rough-turned, the lathe gets switched off, and the waiting game begins.
Moisture escapes from the end-grain of wood much faster than the face-grain. To control this and stop the wood from pulling itself apart, we pack the rough turned wood pieces in their own wet shavings inside a bag.
We place it in a cool, dark corner of the workshop and weigh it on a digital scale every few weeks. This drying process can take anywhere from three to twelve months. As a wooden sculpture artist, patience is the most important tool I own. We know the piece is finally acclimatised when the weight stops dropping. By this point, the perfectly round shape we rough-turned has usually warped significantly.
Phase Three: The Second Turn
This is where the magic happens and true turned art is born. The dry, warped burr goes back onto the lathe.
Remounting a warped piece requires absolute precision. Once it is spinning true again, we use freshly sharpened tools to take away that extra thickness we left months ago. Because the wood is now bone dry, it cuts crisper, allowing us to refine the delicate curves of our hand turned wooden vases and decorative forms.
The Value of Time
When you invest in handmade wooden art from our studio, you aren't just buying a decorative object. You are acquiring a piece of organic home decor that was carefully monitored, dried, and machined over the better part of a year to ensure it will never warp or crack in your home. It is the ultimate meeting of nature’s raw beauty and human craftsmanship.
Want to see the results of this months-long process? Explore our collection of Wood Turnings For Sale to find a piece of twice-turned Yorkshire craftsmanship for your home.