Article: How I Make Spiral or Twisted Finials

[Primvs Aebvtivs]

I am amazed at how easy you made it look. lovely clear photo's of the piece in action, just wondering if I dare go in the shop now (9p.m. Saturday night) to 'have a play' as the wife calls it... Or should I wait till shop opens in the morning... I think I'll wait, and see what I can find to practice on! Probably a cheap piece of pine to start with (I hate wastinf hardwood). Thanks for posting this, I may have to embellish some stuff I've got in the pipeline!'Bvt

[Bill Wyko]

Everyone should give these a shot. What fun. Take your time and enjoy yourself. Now for a twisted bowl. 8-)[/IMG]

[Josh Brower]

I have an old router crafter from sears that makes these a breeze. You should look around ebay...if you can find a picture you can make one.

[salim nirjhor]

yes u uploaded very cute , informative tutorial. tnx

[james hepp]

Nice tutorial. thanks for taking the time to write this.
I own a 6ft Legacy Mill, and for milling just a couple one off parts, you can bet I'll be trying THIS next time, as opposed to setting up the Legacy, placing ANOTHER order to Magnate and all the other associated expense and delay.

[Melissa Messick]

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your fAwesome work.

[Lance Granum]

this was covered in a deltagram from the 1930s so the credit of the design should not go to the modern artist. when this was clearly a common art form ion the 1930s I have the delta gram it was shown in zI will have to look to see who the artist who posted the information was but it is hardly fair to site someone as the inventor of the form or to call it his form when it was simply copied from the Deltagram magazine. That said you did an exelent job in re creating it I will look for the issue and will give you the information on it

[Harvey Ghesser]

Lance,

Richard Madden gave credit to his sources of information:

"From the first time I saw pictures of Stuart Mortimers signature twist work, I knew I wanted to try one myself, but I feared it was too difficult and time consuming. Stuarts book, Techniques of Spiral Work- A Practical Guide to the Craft of Making Twists by Hand, and an article in the May 2006 issue of Woodturning were the sources of inspiration and also great learning tools."

It has been nearly a week since your post. Are you still searching for that Deltagram?

[Lance Granum]

Yes I have found one of the spiral projects. I have not found the finial but i did find a large candel stick. Iwill continue to search for them. I have had 2 links to the delta gram project removed from this site as they dont aprove of links to sources here. However if you simply google Deltagram we will be at or near the top of the links and you will see other links on lumberjocks that point to the deltagram project. I will try to get this one scanned and put up so you all can see how they were doing this in the 1930s.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Richard, you are mistaken. We allow and even encourage links here. You just can't link to another forum, to a website for the sole purpose to direct traffic to that website for monetary gain or to your own commercial website.

[Richard Madden]

this was covered in a deltagram from the 1930s so the credit of the design should not go to the modern artist. when this was clearly a common art form ion the 1930s I have the delta gram it was shown in zI will have to look to see who the artist who posted the information was but it is hardly fair to site someone as the inventor of the form or to call it his form when it was simply copied from the Deltagram magazine. That said you did an exelent job in re creating it I will look for the issue and will give you the information on it

Lance,
Did I site anyone as the "inventor of this form", or did I call it "his form'??? Read it again Lance. I give all credit for this kind of work to Stuart Mortimer, because it was his book and his magazine article that inspired me. Had I been inspired by this delta gram you refer to, I'd certainly have given credit to that source. And by all means give me the information on this delta gram, but if you think twisted or spiral work was "invented" by this mystery person in the 1930's that you are mentioning, I would wager you are wrong about that. This style of work, meaning twist or spiral, dates back much further than the 1930's. It dates back at least 400 to 500 years ago. Google Jacobean style furniture, as an example, and you will see what I'm talking about.

[Lance Granum]

I am sorry it was the way it sounded to me. I was not saying that it came from someone in particular. however you meant it is fine with me. I just wanted to point out that he didn't invent the form that was my point. I don't think anything is new I think everything has been done before and I am sure the art form goes back 2000 years. if any example was here we would know.

[Hennie Ackermann]

I think this finial is briliant, would like to try it. My only question is what material is it made of, on the picture its white?

[Richard Madden]

I think this finial is briliant, would like to try it. My only question is what material is it made of, on the picture its white?

Hennie,
For this piece I used holly so the pencil lines would show, but any straight grain hardwood would work. Thanks for the comment.

[Arlin Eastman]

I love the way you taught it and shown your work.
I think I maybe even able to do this.

Arlin