Bruce and Mari Bassett: Turning Lace Bobbins

Bruce's wife, Marie, is a lace maker and Bruce has turned many bobbins for her use in this art. Bruce maintains that it is important for bobbin turners to work with a lace maker who can critique the designs for functionality, since the bobbin is first and foremost a tool. Marie displayed several pieces of her work including some active projects.

Lace bobbins are used to hold and manipulate the many threads used in producing a piece of lace. It is not unusual for a single project to utilize 55 to 60 pairs of bobbins, and some pieces require several hundred pairs! Lace making is a regional art and various types of bobbins have evolved to facilitate the regional techniques for the large variety of laces.

However, the most common bobbins fall into two classes: the English or Midland bobbins, and Continental or Belgian bobbins. The English bobbin is characterized by two features: both a long and a short neck for handling the threads, and a loop of beads, or spangles, attached to the end of the handle. The spangles prevent the bobbin from rolling as well as providing additional weight and decoration. The Continental bobbins have a single long neck for holding the thread. In this demonstration Bruce turned one bobbin of each type.

Although dimensions and designs can vary depending on the type of lace techniques employed, the Midland style bobbins are typically about four inches long and about ¼" in diameter with the necks approximately 1/8" in diameter. The Continental style bobbins have a bulb that is approximately 3/8" diameter at the end of the handle with the neck slightly larger than 1/8" diameter. A variety of bobbin styles and designs can be found on-line by searching on "lace bobbins." One site that shows a wide variety is http://www.pdhwoodturning.co.uk/ (look under the "Lace Making" and "Bobbins" tabs).

Woods

The threads typically used in making lace are very fine and delicate so it is important that the bobbins be smooth so the thread does not snag on open pores or coarse grain. The very thin dimensions of the bobbin itself also dictate that the woods used be hard, dense and fine grained. Any wood that might be used for hand chased threads would generally be good for bobbins also. Among the woods Bruce has used successfully are: boxwood, pink ivory, olive, mountain mahogany, kingwood, tulipwood, African blackwood, zebra wood, cocobolo, rosewood, rock maple, yew, and red heart. In the demo Bruce used red heart and mountain mahogany. The axis of the bobbin needs to be fairly closely aligned (within 10-15 degrees) with the grain of the wood, since otherwise the narrow neck is very subject to breakage.

Turning an English Bobbin

Safety is not much of an issue in turning bobbins. The piece is so small and light it is not likely to fly off the lathe harmfully. Nevertheless, safety glasses should still be worn. Bruce does all his turning and sanding at 1800 rpm. For the English bobbin a blank is chosen that is about 3/8"×3/8"×5". Bruce mounted the blank in a 3½" Vicmark chuck with extended jaws so the jaws engaged corners of the blank rather that the flat sides of the blank. Bruce feels this gives more flexibility in aligning the opposite end of the blank with the live center. The outer end of the blank was supported by a very small cone center to prevent whipping during rotation. It is important that the blank not be under much compression from the tail center.

The blank was rough turned to a cylinder with a small spindle roughing gouge. A caliper was set to a heavy ¼" and the two ends and the center of the blank were turned to that diameter to provide a visual guide. The blank was then turned to the marked-diameter cylinder for its full length and smoothed with a delicate planing cut using a skew. Bruce favors an oval skew for this cut. The profile feature transition points were then marked on the cylinder with the point of the skew. By request from Marie, Bruce leaves the design of the handle portion of the bobbin relatively simple so it does not irritate her hand as she works with it.

The shaping of the profile was done largely with skew-like tools Bruce had ground from masonry nails. The steel in these nails is very hard, and is so small that it is easily burned, so care must be taken to cool the steel while grinding. Bruce dips the nail in water before grinding and then re-wets the steel as soon as the water evaporates during grinding. The nails are pre-tempered (so they will not fracture in normal use), so no additional tempering is required. These tools are held in a small keyless chuck mounted on a small wood handle. While turning the profile, Bruce uses the index finger of his left hand to support the back of the blank. In this design the short neck is very short indeed. It is really a very narrow cove with a bottom diameter even smaller that the diameter of the long neck. Bruce prefers to orient the profile so the bobbin handle is at the tailstock end and the short neck at the chuck end. This gives him maximum stability while turning the long neck. The long neck is a cylindrical surface about an inch long between the handle and the short neck. The long neck is separated from the handle and the short neck by square flanges or beads to satisfy the designer. The completed profile is sanded with narrow strips of 320 grit paper.

The piece is parted off at the tail-stock end and the free end sanded while supported only by the chuck and fingers. The bobbin is then parted off from the chuck end and hand sanded.

The bobbin was then buffed using Tripoli buffing compound. Bruce used a sewn buffing wheel turning at 1200 rpm. Take care to load the wheel only lightly with the Tripoli compound. Excess wax from the compound could transfer to the thread and damage the lace work. During buffing grip the bobbin carefully with both hands to prevent it being stripped away by the wheel.

Bruce finished the piece by using a Dremel tool with a 1/32" drill bit to drill a small hole through the diameter of the end of the handle to receive a loop of spangle beads.

Turning a Continental Bobbin

The procedure for turning the Continental bobbin is virtually the same as with the English bobbin with only a few exceptions. A slightly larger blank is preferred, e.g., ½"×½"×5". The blank is mounted as before and roughed to a 3/8" diameter cylinder. The profile transition points were again marked with the point of a skew. In this design there is no short neck so the singular long neck goes almost to the chuck end of the blank.

In this demo Bruce used a Sorby Micro Spiraling/Texturing tool to cut spiral grooves in the bottom end of the handle section. He then turned that section into a tear-drop bulb so that the decorative spiral grooves remained visible only at the wider portion of the bulb. The remainder of the handle and the long neck were turned with the home-made mini-skew as before. The long-neck section was defined with square flanges. The piece was sanded, parted and buffed as with the English bobbin.

Bruce says that if you want to remount a bobbin to do any additional work, masking tape wrapped around a portion of the bobbin will give an area that the chuck can grip without damaging the bobbin. The outboard end would need to be stabilized using a small concave cone center.

(Demonstration pictures continue down the long column on the right.)

Click on any picture to see it full size.

Demo illustrations...