A Bodger's Blog

Woodturning on the pole lathe using hand tools and freshly felled timber

Sunday, 24 July 2011

Ronald Macdonald parachutes into the Woodland Workshop...

Posted by TREEWRIGHT at 14:06

TREEWRIGHT: Waltham Abbey, Essex, United Kingdom; Bodgers were the 19th century workers in the Chiltern beechwoods to the North West of London who made the sticks, legs and stretchers to supply the Windsor chair industry at High Wycombe. (Some also worked from home in a shed at the end of the garden like I do). They set up a workshop often deep within the forest rather than fell the timber and take it home with them. So only finished components left the forest. Apparently they would take sacks of shavings so they could leave a trail to find their way back to their camp. They used the pole lathe (a foot operated lathe powered by a springy sapling), a shave horse plus a few simple tools and were expert craftsmen. Unfortunately the term has completely changed its meaning in the last 100 years and a "bodger" is now someone who is inept and ruins a job.