Holzapfel lathe vs everything else

[Curt George]

Hello everyone.
As I see it the Holzapfel lathe is the grand farther to all the OT world. even though it is more like a modern steel lathe then , a wood lathe that we know of today.

I own a Legacy Ornamental Mill, (its more or less a router lathe.) It works along the same lines as the Holzapfel lathe, except it uses a router to cut the wood vs/instead of a universal cutting frame , that you see on most OT equipment.

Since I want to compare apple to apples. (so to speak) I would like to know more about the jigs and tools that made the Holtz. lathe the King of the OT world.
Most of the articles that I can find are about the Rose engine lathe. I own 4 of the Holtz. books and have tried to read them all but, if I'm 100% honest, the old English is hard to read, and even harder to understand.
CAN anyone point the way to a source , that I can see and learn form. so I can become a better OT/wood turner?

C.A.G.

P.S. Here are a few pix. of some of my works.

 

[RichColvin]

Curt,

I had a similarly tough time getting started with ornamental turning. That is why I documented what I leaned in the Ornamental Turning Book of Knowledge and have made it available to anyone for free with no ads. That was transferred to the Ornamental Turners Int’l and can be accessed at OrnamentalTurners.info (or https://ornamentalturners.com/wiki/index.php).

On that site is a listing of some great books for ornamental turner (click on Books). I can highly recommend Ornamental Turnery, by Frank Knox. It was written in 1986 so it is very recent and much more readable. Also quite good is Woodturning Wizardry, by T.D. Walshaw. That is also relatively recent, having been written in 1990.

If you want to better understand the Holtzapffel lathes, check out the Plumier Foundation (https://plumier.org/) and John Edward’s web site (http://www.ornamentalturning.co.uk/). Interesting enough: of the ~1,200 lathes which the Holtzapffel company made, only 20 were rose engines.

Rich

 

[Curt George]

Wow! Thank you for all the INFO.
I have talked to John Edwards in the past. Very nice man. I check the Plumier foundation often. but much of your posting is new to me.
Again Thank you.
Hope to talk to you more latter.

C.A.G.