Traditional Methods
The tradition of making bowls in Liverpool goes back a long
way. Sometime after 1409, we do not know the actual date, bowls
of wood were used, made from boxwood, holly, yew or oak. It is presumed
that lignum vitae was introduced in making bowls during the 16th
century.
Lignum vitae is a timber now on the United Nation CITES list,
which means it requires special licences for export and import.
 It
is now even more difficult to obtain suitable timber for the manufacture
of bowls. Lignum vitae is one of the most outstanding of all timbers,
it is not only one of the hardest and heaviest known, but has an
almost unique property of being self-lubricating. As a result, not
only was it used for lawn bowls, but also for bearings and bushing
blocks for propeller shafts of ships, as well as
pulley sheaths. Those who had high-quality mangles to put the
washing through, would also perhaps have recognised that the bottom
roller was sometimes made from lignum vitae.
The way lignum vitae bowls were made was a skilled job,
not just from the turning, but right through from the selection
of the original logs. There are three species of lignum vitae and
only one is really suitable. That is "Guiacum Officinale",
so knowledge of the species is required. Interestingly, lignum is
bought by weight, rather than more usual for logs, cubic measurement.
Once the logs were accepted as the correct species, the next stage
in the selection can proceed.
Those logs which had too large a heart crack, would be unsuitable,
note however that all lignum vitae has a heart crack and it is probable
that the white mounts (discs) were used to hide these cracks. The
heart of the timber has also to be positioned in the log to allow
it to be the centre of the bowl, so if it was too close to one side
to allow for this, the log would be rejected. The timber itself
is very dark in colour, but the sap wood is pale yellow in colour
and is sharply defined; it is only the dark timber that is required,
so any logs that did not have sufficient diameter of dark timber
would be rejected, and, equally, if the log was too large in diameter,
resulting in too much waste, this would also be rejected.
So, after the initial careful inspection and selection, the
timber selected would be purchased. The next stage is to produce
the "blanks" from which the craftsman turner, would make the bowls.
For any bowls, to make a set, the "blanks" have to come from the
same log, and from side-by-side in that log, otherwise the specific
gravity of the bowls would not be the same and the likelihood of
the bowls being of "similar" weights could not be expected, or achieved.
The first stage of producing the "blank", or timber, was basically
to produce a cylinder which could be put between the centres of
a ball-turning lathe. It is worth noting that at every stage, the
timber requires careful inspection and sealing, to ensure it
has not cracked.
The craftsman turner, would take the rough ball-shaped blank,
and turn it into the shape of a bowl. The skill required
to do this, using only hand tools and a template to give the running
sole shape was, to say the least, an art, and was all down to eye
and hand co-ordination as well as experience. By offering up the
sole template to the piece being turned, and judging the amounts
of material to be turned off, the craftsman would produce the required
shape and dimensions. They would also position the top rings which
delineated the running sole.
After the mounts (discs) would be fitted and the inner rings
and any other decoration would be cut on to the bowl. Then followed
the next most skillful job, checking out the bias. As you can imagine,
even allowing for the skill of the turner, the bowls required biassing
to that specified by the customer and governing bodies of the game.
The examination of the bias was, and still is, done on the test
table, which is used as a quality control device rather than the
means of knowing what the bowl would do on the green.
It is amazing just how little material needs to be sanded off
to adjust the bias of a bowl either to make the bias stronger
or weaker. The skill is knowing how to remove as little as possible,
while still being able to retain the basic geometric "proven template"
shape. If the "proven template" shape is altered, then the bowls
may be able to be made to run down the test table acceptably, but
might not do so on the green; thus great skill and knowledge is
required. Finally, the bowl would have been hand-polished, either
black if the original timber was not considered to be 100%, or natural
if the timber was considered the very best. I am sure there are
still a lot of crown green bowlers who have fond memories of the
"Extra Quality" bowls, which were polished natural and had the Deluxe
decoration on them. I know that if any bowler has lost their bowls,
they always seem to describe them as being of that quality! Now
we use a very hard-wearing spray finish rather than hand-polishing.
These traditional skills still exist, although now the "ball"
shape blank is turned on the same C.N.C. lathes as they use for
composite bowls. Composition bowls are more
accurately made to the required geometric shape than could have
been achieved by even the most skilled craftsman. All the other
skills remain the same, especially, when it comes to the biassing.
The new lignum vitae bowls will lose some 20g - 46g in weight
in the first year, after that, with care and attention, involving
bowls being repolished at least bi-annually, they should give many,
many years of service.
One of the reasons that composition bowls were first introduced;
Dunlop company being one of the first to use a rubber compound,
found that in hot weather, especially in the Southern hemisphere,
lignum vitae bowls were prone to split. So, in Australia and
New Zealand, bowlers would probably only know lignum vitae
bowls from their display cabinets, whereas in the North of
England we see many thousands of crown green lignum vitae
bowls still being used. So, "woods" are still going strong,
but the Composition bowls are taking a larger and larger market
share. - Peter
N. Clare - Director of Drakes Pride
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