Woodturning Woodturning is the process by which a craftsperson uses hand-held tools to fashion a wooden workpiece into various shapes as it rotates on the lathe to which it is secured, similarly to how clay is worked as it spins on a potter’s wheel. Symmetrical forms are created as the wood revolves around its axis of rotation. A skilled woodturner can produce an infinite variety of items, including wooden bowls, wooden doorknobs and wooden cases. Mordecai (anglicised form, Murdoch) Fromanteel, the father of early clockmaker Ahasuerus Fromanteel, was a wood turner in Norwich. He clearly passed on these skills to his son, Ahasuerus, who started his working life turning wood cases for Cornelius Drebbel’s microscope and telescope lenses during the 1620s.
