An Interesting NoveltyAlthough I make no claim to originality, I have been making these little fellows for quite a few years. As a matter of fact, the very first thing I ever turned , and this goes back some 40 years, was a set of Grenadier Guards to be used as skittles. I ran through quite a few other figures at the time including clowns, both fat and thin , policemen and some rather strange looking animals all made out of wood recovered from old wash troughs.
The smoking man hails from the Erzgebirge in East Germany. He was introduced to us by Rolf Steinert when he visited the UK in 1989 to demonstrate at a series of craft seminars in Buxton. Later an article describing this work appeared in the English "Wood Worker" magazine.
It appears that the areas around Rolf's home town were originally prosperous tin and silver mining regions dating back to the 14th century, but as the ore diminished the miners had to look to other activities in order to make a living, and, being situated in a dense forest region, the obvious choice was to look at woodcraft which included woodturning. Bear in mind that there was quite a fair bit of artistic talent around in the form of silversmiths and very soon a cottage industry evolved creating mainly colourful toys and religious objects.
The smoking man is made of two parts; a hollow body containing an
incense cone, and a base which must have an inlet for air to get into
the hollow body.
After the incense is lit and then blown out and allowed to smolder,
the body is placed over the base and the little man "smokes" through
the hole forming his mouth. CARE MUST BE TAKEN to
contain the incense in a small metal tray to avoid burning the wooden
base.
As I have made quite a few of these men, I gave a group of them musical instruments instead of pipes and turned them into a German Band.
Although the completed figures may be painted using paints of any description, I stain mine using food dye obtainable from the grocery section at the supermarket. A word of warning, don't polish the parts to be stained as this stops the stain from penetrating the wood. After staining I usually spray or paint on diluted black paint which is wiped off immediately in order to give an aged effect. The faces and hands can be easily painted using acrylic artists colours.
The drawings (below) are, I believe, self explanatory. My only
original contribution other than the drawings is the use of the
reground spade bit to drill out the body, thus eliminating the time
consuming and tedious operation of hollowing out with a gouge.
Prior to using the modified bit, I also use another spade bit to form
the recess at the bottom of the body to fit the base. By using a
tapered plug, the turning may be carried out either using a chuck or
turned between centres.
