Artful Twister — features

Artful Twister is a free, browser-based wood-lathe spindle-turning simulator. Design a turning visually, watch it form in 3D, then print 1:1 templates to bring to the lathe.

Animated preview of Artful Twister simulating an inside-out segmented turning, showing the segments flipping and re-assembling into the final shape. — Just one feature of Artful Twister: Design, check, animate and print out templates for inside-out turning.

Try Artful Twister

Set your blank size and you're off

Pick a cylindrical or square blank, and set its dimensions. Set the cut profile, and immediately see the result in the 3D view.

The cut profile is edited by simple curve editing with straight or auto-smoothed curves. If you're into that kind of thing, Bézier curve editing is available as well. For fine control, use the keyboard to nudge everything into place.

Simulate straight spindle turning

Editing a snowman in the profile editor, with the 3D view updating in real time.

Refine the design of your snowmen, trees, goblets, bottle stoppers, candle holders, or mallet heads, and immediately see in the 3D view what it will look like on the lathe. Use the showcase for an animation of the 3D design. You can even simulate drilling a hole into the spindle end.

Multi-axis turning and multiple cuts

Apply straight cuts to offset centre points and immediately see the results.

Want to turn standing birds, cabriole legs for your furniture, or a twisted pencil holder? Define extra centre points and easily apply a separate cut for each remount. At each step, the 3D rendering will immediately show the result and you can get an animation in the showcase.

Inside-out turning

Fine-tune the inside and outside of inside-out turnings.

Can't wrap your head around the wraparound of an inside-out turning? Artful Twister makes it easy to set things up for three-, four-, six- and eight-segmented pieces, and understand how the inner and outer cuts affect the final shape. An extra 3D animation is available to not only show the final product, but also the flip of the segments.

Layered woods

Rattle setup with 3 layers of wood. Tune the heights of the layers to see the effects.

Want to turn a penguin or investigate what different-coloured endcaps on a rattle will look like, before committing to using expensive woods? Stack the blank from layers of different colours and thicknesses. Then apply your cut profile. Cuts reveal the lamination pattern in the preview, so you can see exactly how things will appear before you commit to the glue-up.

It's Free. Save and share without even logging in

This app is completely free to use. Save designs to the cloud and share them by link without needing to log in. If you decide this is something for you, then create an account to share your models or make them completely private.

If you find that you like using Artful Twister, signing up for an account (also completely free) will give you an easy overview of your models, let you save your settings across sessions, and so much more.

All we ask for is your email address and a password to ensure you have complete control over your account.

Export and import

Print out cut profiles and bring them to your lathe.

1:1 PDF — print directly as a physical lathe template.
SVG — open in any vector editor, or print at 1:1 scale.
STL — drop the finished model into your favourite 3D printing program.
SVG import — Want to create your cutting profile in Inkscape or Illustrator? Import any SVG as a new profile.

Help where you need it

Hover or focus any control for an explanation of what it does. You can turn the tooltips off once you know your way around. A full user guide is of course available inside the app.

For more detailed help on using Artful Twister, refer to the User guide.

Try Artful Twister