The woods used for lacemaking bobbins are many and varied, and each lends its own character to the finished article. All Turners have our favourites and tend to pick that type of wood first when we go in the workshop to get ’your eye in’. The pile of wood blanks can be a bit like a jar of sweets, you don’t know which one to pick, so you pick your favourite because it’s fairly safe.
Buying wood is even more like a trip to the sweet shop, especially when you spot a bargain – we all like those! Just occasionally at Lace Days we come across them if a Bobbin Maker is retiring and parting with surplus stock of blanks, often just in a box with no labels, so you have no idea of what the wood is. Some, like purple heart wood and ebony are easily identifiable – but an awful lot are not and fall in to one of two categories, Wasawood or Beenatree 
The downside is that you have no idea how it’s going to behave on the lathe. The upside is some are an absolute joy and produce beautiful lacemaking bobbins and tools. When that happens I promote them from the ranks of Beenatree to ‘Random Wood’. Sometimes I can make a shrewd guess, but as you can rarely be sure, Random Wood it remains.
Taking the plunge and buying a Random Wood lacemaking bobbin or tool is a bit like a lucky dip, you will always get a good prize and you might end up with something that ages to spectacular beauty as the wood matures fully.
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