Thread: How many of us are there?

That would be hilarious Hughie if it turned out that my statistical analysis was accurate. Thanks for the references on ergonomics, I came across the Canadian Centre info a few weeks back. The paper references that hard shiny surfaces are problematic for handles!
By coincidence I met up with Richard just yesterday and had a very similar conversation about making money out of turning. Seems that the US has a positive attitude around paying for both tools and turned product. We didn't discuss Eu though he did mention some folk that are massive production turners.

Originally Posted by BobL

641, 428 turners eh

Well given there are about 600,000 villages in china and about the same number in india and on average each village has one turner (a number I just made up)- some will have none but some will have many more than one, then you'd have to multiply your number by three.

Bob,
You disappoint me. I know your background.
Willy

WE seem to have a lot more than one turner per village over here. You just can't walk into a craft shop without tripping
over all manners of turned wood - most of it very well done indeed. Typically 2-3 turners per craft shop. Although many
supply more than one shop, too. And - craft shops everywhere. Tourism is big in NZ.

I think that's why my wife told me: don't even think about getting into it. (besides, I'm a dilettante when it comes to turning).

When I did my apprenticeship in woodturning at lidcombe tafe there was 3 apprentice's including myself the rest of the class was some retired guys and some guys that could turn that wanted there trade certificate.
With the last census I put woodturner as occupation as I was turning at a staircase place. Not sure if the static mob would release statics.
I'm on the lathe 4 to 5 days a week and turned balusters with bruised ribs, mainly to get the job done.
I know one guy I went to tafe with is still running in Sydney.

You can't transpose hobby usage in rich countries to the rest of the world. Most of the world don't have the money or space.

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Originally Posted by DaveVman

You can't transpose hobby usage in rich countries to the rest of the world. Most of the world don't have the money or space.

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In primitive parts of the world there are people whacking out bowls by the 100s for use as eating and drinking utensils. I have seen photos of I think in Tibet of a lathe made of a four foot or so pole running in wood bearings, probably lubricated with Yak butter, with four blades on one end in a small waterfall, three nails on the other end on to which the blank was positioned and given a couple whacks with a wood club. Tool rest was wood in a fixed position and a hand sharpened hook tool was used. There was a pile of shavings and a pile of bowls.

The turner was sitting on the ground with the lathe practically in his lap.

Edit: I remember where I saw the photos. They were in a National Geographic magazine about Bhutan published in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
They may now have spun Chinese stainless steel bowls in department stores.

Originally Posted by Paul39

I remember where I saw the photos. They were in a National Geographic magazine about Bhutan published in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
They may now have spun Chinese stainless steel bowls in department stores.

Nope - they're still there but they have upgraded their machinery, slightly
Check out the foot brake and high level PPE use!


There's dozens or maybe hundreds of these vids on Youtube.

Originally Posted by BobL

Nope - they're still there but they have upgraded their machinery, slightly
Check out the foot brake and high level PPE use!


There's dozens or maybe hundreds of these vids on Youtube.

I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who turn out nice work with little resources.

A side note, the two pulleys are called fast and loose pulleys. When the belt is on the loose pulley on our right it turns freely. When it is on the left pulley it is held fast to the spindle and runs the lathe.

Just chatting to a chap that has a bit of a bent for research. I mentioned this topic and he came back advising that there are 275,000 professional woodturners in North America. More than I expected!


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Originally Posted by Phily

Just chatting to a chap that has a bit of a bent for research. I mentioned this topic and he came back advising that there are 275,000 professional woodturners in North America. More than I expected!


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That doesnt surprise me North America has a population of around 580 million and according to Google it is or has the worlds greatest number of collectors or 'wood turned art' with over 200 museums that have a section to wood turned art.

Originally Posted by hughie

That doesnt surprise me North America has a population of around 580 million and according to Google it is or has the worlds greatest number of collectors or 'wood turned art' with over 200 museums that have a section to wood turned art.

plus a fair demand for architectural turnings for period restoration of houses.

Over breakfast on the Monday after Turnfest, with Mark Baker (Editor of UK Woodturning magazine) we were discussing a similar topic when he mentioned that there are something like one million lathes sold annually. A great majority of those would be low end lathes destined for perhaps one or two uses before they end up on Ebay, Gumtree, or as scrap or landfill. However a fair proportion would remain in use.

Given there are something like 1.6 million Australian males over 65 and a fair take up of wood turning as a hobby in retirement then there could possibly be 50k or so who wood turn at least a few times a year or more often. Only rough speculation of course.

Originally Posted by Phily

Just chatting to a chap that has a bit of a bent for research. I mentioned this topic and he came back advising that there are 275,000 professional woodturners in North America. More than I expected!

roughly

but what definition did he use for "North America" ? and how was "professional wood turner" defined ?
Panama to the Arctic is about 580 million people -- doing the maths implies there are 47 professional turners per 100,000 people
the NAFTA countries (Mexico, US and Canada) is about 495 million -- implies 56 per 100,000
US and Canada is about 357 million -- implies 77 per 100,000.

Picking the NAFTA number for say, the implication is that there should be around 2900 professional turners in Sydney (population 5.24 M) and 14,000 across Australia -- a bit on the high side me thinks.

I'll leave others to adjust these "estimates" to a number which appears more reasonable.

Originally Posted by ian

roughly

but what definition did he use for "North America" ? and how was "professional wood turner" defined ?
Panama to the Arctic is about 580 million people -- doing the maths implies there are 47 professional turners per 100,000 people
the NAFTA countries (Mexico, US and Canada) is about 495 million -- implies 56 per 100,000
US and Canada is about 357 million -- implies 77 per 100,000.

Picking the NAFTA number for say, the implication is that there should be around 2900 professional turners in Sydney (population 5.24 M) and 14,000 across Australia -- a bit on the high side me thinks.

I'll leave others to adjust these "estimates" to a number which appears more reasonable.

OK fair enough, if we look at the US population of 320 million 2015 and it popularity its still not surprising, these are ball park figure as I have never seen any research on 'wood turners' or 'wood turned art' anywhere. There used to be a general area of search within Google stats some time ago, so any info is going to be anecdotal rather than empirical. But if we dont ask the question we will never get an answer and no doubt this question has been asked many times over on many of the forums on the net.
Now I would think that many of the 'professional wood turners in the USA to day' would also include guys that turn art pieces and be contributing members of many of the woody type forums in the USA.Perhaso we need to define 'professional'. I know from personal research that many sell art pieces via galleries and local markets etc to a far greater extent than here in Oz. Which tells me that there is a wide appreciation of wood turning in the USA today.
Now most of these would not necessarily regard themselves as professional, yet they derive much of the cost of thier day to day expenses from the wood turning, we can see this via comments on the many forums.

Yeh, I can accept that the demographics and population distribution in the US and Canada is vastly different compared to Australia. And in particular Australia doesn't have the strong "buy US made" culture seen in the US and Canada. (of course I'm comparing "Made in USA" with "Made in Australia").
Which in turn would allow many more "craftsie" wood turners to be considered "professional" compared to Australia.

So if we take the 77 per 100,000 figure from my earlier post (USA and Canada), the estimated number of "professional" turners in Australia would be about 18,000.
But based on what little turnery I see at markets and in galleries, I would think a more reasonable estimate would be less than 2000 "professional" turners. "Professional" equating to a earning a significant proportion of your total income from turning.

Which is not to say that turning is not a popular hobby -- so I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than 20,000 amateur wood turners across Australia.