turner (cup maker)

A master who worked on the turning lathe making wooden objects. The simplest form of the turning lathe was the cutting lathe: the object to be refined is held by the turner in his left hand with the cutter looped on it; it rotes at a varying rhythm and with the help of the chisel in his right hand the turner formed the object. A more sophisticated instrument was the turning lathe rotated by the leg. If the turner moved the chisel in the direction of the axis of the rotating object, the object became a cylinder, a cone or a sphere. This method is called sphere-turning. If the master moved the chisel vertically to the axis of rotation, the surface became plain. This was plain turning. Until the 19th century turners made all the generally used wooden dishes for drinking and eating, such as wooden cups, plates and bowls.

TI