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Some history…

Years ago, I found two excellent teaching manuals that provide a highly organized method of learning. These manuals are more than 100 years old and were used for teaching woodturning in high schools—back when woodshop was taken very seriously.

I found the first book serendipitously when I purchased a reprint of Elementary Turning, by Frank Henry Selden (Manual Arts Press, 1907). As I went through the book and completed the prescribed spindle exercises, I saw that each one built upon the last. The author notes, “A careful examination of the text by one who understands this line of work will reveal the fact that the elementary principles are covered very completely, and yet there is not in the regular set a single exercise which may be dispensed with, without a real loss to the average pupil.” After the last exercise, I started over and did them again.

Then I taught a spindle turning class for my club using the book as a reference. I found the teaching methodology worked very well, and of course Selden’s book became required reading for my course.

Sometime later, I found another old woodturning instruction book online, A Course in Wood Turning, written in 1919 by high school teachers Archie Seldon Milton and Otto K. Wohlers (published by The Bruce Publishing Company). This book offers several spindle-turning exercises similar to those found in Elementary Turning, but most exciting to me were the many different ones included. Of course, I tried each of them.

These two books are available to download free of charge, as their copyrights are now expired and they are in the public domain. Because I prefer physical books I can hold in my hand, I eventually found both originals on eBay (Photo 1). To view an electronic copy, visit the website of either the Library of Congress (loc.gov) or the Internet Archive (archive.org) and enter the book title into the search bar. Both sites have made it easy to find many old books on woodturning—and on woodworking in general.

The authors evidently believed that spindle turning should be taught before faceplate turning, as both books begin with thorough explanations and exercises on spindle techniques.

It is only after these exercises and projects that faceplate turning is introduced. I agree with this approach and have found that as my own spindleturning skills improved, bowl and faceplate turning became much easier, too.