Originally posted by SteveJ:
Originally posted by raish:
Originally posted by SteveJ:
Another interesting fact for you Jeb, a 'bodger' is a person who works making furniture parts, ie, chair legs and spindles for the backs, they work in the woods where the trees are cut and they use foot powered lathes using ropes and a sapling that is pulled over and the ropes is tied to it, this gives the springing for the lathe. The 'bodgers' still work in the Beech woods around High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, UK. This is an age old tradition. The work they did was known as 'bodging', which has since been applied to makeshift repairs or workmanship, not 'botched' jobs which are shoddy work.
There you go:)) |
Thanks for that, Steve. That was what I thought I was going to find in the Etymological dictionary, but no. Working in unseasoned wood? |
Yep, green beech, cut, bark stripped and worked on the foot lathe into spindles etc, then sent off to furniture makers. The art of Bodging is over 500 years old and these were/are highly skilled woodturners. The term Bodger comes from Badger, as they lived in the woods and only came out of their huts in the evenings. |
I watched a bodger at work last weekend at our local fair. The lathe was fascinating, and so simple that even I could make one. Not sure why I didn't take a picture of it, though :( |
