The construction of the complex and difficult-to-make oval cedar case for the Woodstock Challenge Cup (plate 1) illustrated in my article “Essie Jenyns and her Australian Terriers” has prompted me to wonder how and why it came into being. Recently I purchased for my reference library a complete set of the Bulletin of the Society of Ornamental Turners (SOT).2 In Bulletin vol 25, no 125, September 2011, there is an article on surviving Birch twin-mandrel lathes, giving as an example the Wood family and its Birch lathe.