Mouldings are used for decorative and divisional purposes in various materials, and to some extent their character is affected by the formative process involved.
Thus in wood-turning the general profiles are kept fairly soft, taking usually, as in the case of stair rails and furniture legs, the baluster form. As a rule there is little variation between the maximum and minimum diameters.
The baluster shafts have bases and capitals of curved profiles, with intervening fillets, which latter may be fairly sharp, as they are by their position protected from damage.
Turning is also employed in metal work, the stems and bodies of Dutch candelabra, both standard and hanging, being originally cast as to general form and finished in the lathe.
The general treatment is similar to that of wood-turning, except that the material being much harder, the mouldings can be more sharply defined and delicate in detail.
The throwing of pottery is analagous to turning, but by this method little more can be accomplished than thickened edges. The Greek vases show some precision of profile, the result of turning on a lathe after the vessel had been formed on the wheel.
[Illustration: No. 146. Moulded Vase in Terra-cotta.]
In moulded pottery more definition is possible than in thrown variety, but the profiles are comparatively blunt and never attain the precision due to turning.
In metal, mouldings may be rolled or drawn. In the first they are formed in the solid, but drawn mouldings are formed in plate or sheet metal and are therefore hollow and of uniform thickness.
By either method mouldings of any required section are obtainable provided they are not undercut.
Both varieties are ordinarily obtainable in various sections and sizes in iron, brass, bronze, and silver.
Where special sections are required, the cost of the tools necessary for their production would have to be taken into account.
Though the employment of rolled or drawn mouldings is usual in wrought iron-work, the effect is somewhat mechanical and lacking in character. Preferably only such forms as are attained by either swaging or building up should be employed as being more characteristic of the material and method of working.
[Illustration: No. 149. Wrought Iron Swaged Moulding.]