Читать книгу Mike Darlow's Woodturning Series: Useful Woodturning Projects - Mike Darlow - Страница 23

An important factor which I have so far ignored is that the potential demand for useful turnings is far greater than that for non-useful, and could be better exploited.

For most turners sales are of no or little importance; they keep their turnings or give them away. My experience is that most recipients of free turnings would prefer that they were useful. And even if that use is nominal or obscure, it adds an extra dimension of interest.

Look around the homes of non-turners and compare the number of useful turnings with the number of non-useful. I venture that you’ll usually find that the former is considerably greater. It’s true that the market for useful turnings has declined, in part because of the substitution of man-made materials for wood and the replacement of hand turning by cheaper processes. Therefore a hand-turned item is now a luxury object irrespective of whether it’s useful or not, and its design and making should complement that reality.

Many live and/or work in buildings bereft of aesthetic merit whose rooms before furnishing have all the visual interest of the inside of a cardboard box. Hence the desire to compensate by furnishing with posters, pictures, ornaments, etc. This creates an opportunity for woodturners. A useful turning, even something as mundane as chapter 3’s backscratcher, can become an object of comfort and affection.