Hello  

My name is David Mainland and I live in the rural village of Coylton just outside the town of Ayr in Scotland.

I enjoy woodturning and regard it as a recreation. By producing attractive designed gifts, ornaments and household items at a quality and price acceptable to the public I recoup some of my expenditure. Maybe some day I will cover my costs!

I believe in simple designs that bring out the natural beauty of wood. The proportions of a piece are critical. Get them wrong and the piece seems unbalanced. I tend to arrive at them by eye but sitting behind correct proportions is a mathematical formula arrived at by the ancient Greeks called the Golden Mean which I occasionally fall back on.    

From my observations at craft shows people are attracted to a piece through a combination of its design and the character of the wood - unusual markings helps. I am seldom looking for perfect bland pieces of timber as my raw material. 

One thing I avoid is staining timber or altering its properties in any  way other than treating it with sealant, polish or food safe oil. Colour may however be introduced through using woods with colours that combine in a pleasing harmonious way. Exotics with their wider range of colours are especially useful in this regard. My favorite though is British yew. The combination of its sap wood and heart wood colours makes for an interesting final piece. 

I will be appearing on 12 July and 6 December at the Craft Fair held in the Concert Hall in Troon to pick up some of the summer and Christmas trade. I try to produce something for every room in the house and for every member of the family so I should have something of interest to you.

At present I have on offer: pens, mushrooms, boxes, candle sticks,  vases, bowls, platters, cheese boards, tea light holders, goblets, clocks, letter openers. Children are not forgotten for I also produce spinning tops and yo-yos.

Check my gallery for examples of my work and items for sale.

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