Thread: How many of us are there?

Just for the sake of further complicating a question with no reasonable chance of being answered...

What constitutes a wood turner? For example, I have turned plenty of projects that were JUST turning projects, I have participated in sales of turned objects specifically, I used to belong to a turning-specific club, and I am fully comfortable and capable with a skew chisel (which, let's face it, some turners who are ONLY turners never get there).

And yet, I don't identify as a woodturner unless I'm listing all of my different skills, among which would be "table sawyer" and "drill presser". Nowadays I rarely perform a "just turning" project, and the lathe is merely a tool that is just part of my arsenal of tools. When I need something helical, it's to the lathe, but I don't base my projects around the necessity to maximize lathe time.

If I had to choose one hat to wear that was more specific than "woodworker", it would either be "furniture maker" or "cabinetmaker".

So where do I fall? Do I count as a woodturner?

I know this is kind of semantics, but I haven't seen this touched on in this thread (apologies if I missed it).

Cheers,
Luke

Luke,

I think rule of thumb is whatever you do to make 51% of your income defines what is your profession. I would extend this to your hobby.

I had a 40 year run as a commercial, advertising, industrial, photographer. I then did home repair and maintenance for about 15 years. I now call myself a wood turner, almost all bowls. I have a raggedy 107 year old house that takes woodworking, roofing, concrete, block laying, sheet rock, electrical, plumbing, painting, etc. skills.

There are musicians, artists, actors, dancers, etc. who identify such as their profession, but spend 40 - 60 hours a week waiting tables, checking groceries, or doing whatever is necessary to keep body and soul together. I have no problem with that, even though the "gummint" would have them list whatever brings in 51% of the income on their tax return.

I think "furniture maker" or "cabinetmaker" fits, as you would use whatever tools or machines needed to accomplish what you are making.

Pretty simple answer really.
Count the number of legs at the lathes and divide by two.

I did a bit of chasing on the source of the numbers that I quoted: In 2014 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics highlighted that there was over 237,200 professional woodworkers employed in the US. Compare that with 217,000 in 2010 and the professional market in the US has shown an increase of roughly 2.3% per year.
In context of the other figures quoted, especially the number of lathes sold, this would now seem quite a reasonable number. Being a statistical organisation, I assume that there was a base level of qualification as to what the term "professional" means, but I have no info on that.
One million lathes??? Far out, that's a big number!!!


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