As with many things, woodturning can be as expensive or cheap as you want it to be. If you’re happy to use old second hand equipment, which was good enough for your grandfather’s generation after all, then you can probably kit yourself out for the price of the petrol to pick these things up from people who just want to free up space in their garage. But if you have some spare cash you will find it extremely easy to find ways of spending it for as long as your interest in woodturning persists.

The absolute minimum is: a lathe (£100-5000), some tools (£100 for a good set of 6) and something to sharpen them (£50-250), wood to turn (free-£???), abrasives (£10), a dust mask (£5-£150) and face shield or goggles (£5) and finally oil or wax to finish (£5-£???).

Of course you will be restricted to turning between centres where the wood is essentially wedged between the head and tail stocks which makes it difficult (though not impossible) to turn a bowl or goblet, so next up you’ll probably go for a chuck (£150) to hold your work without the tailstock. And from a health perspective you really don’t want to leave it too long before you get a dust extractor (£150+) for sucking way as much dust as possible when using your abrasives.

By then you will probably be well and truly on the lifelong journey of accumulating more tools, clever gadgets, different finishes, exotic woods, better lighting, better dust extraction, and so on, and so on.