What Is This Metal?

[Blogwitch]

I live in the North Midlands, where pottery (Staffordshire) and a bit lower down in the Black Country, where the industrial revolution started, we have always used the word 'fettle' to mean the dressing down of excessive casting edges, like when a two part mould is used and you get excess material showing around the joint line.
For ceramics, they use a wet cloth if not too bad and for metal 'fettling', nowadays they use and angle or an offhand grinder.

Hope this explains things correctly

John

 

[Cogsy]

Here in Western Australia, fettling is not a 'normal' word and only relates to specialised industry. I was a fettler (also known as a 'dresser') on hot-dip galvanised parts. The fettlers job was to remove dipping drips, dags and runs, plus clean up and repair any problem spots on the galvanised pieces. I took it to mean something like 'finishing' or 'cleaning up' of the workpieces. It's also in my vocab from somewhere as a more general 'adjusting the piece to fit' (filing, grinding, etc).

 

[goldstar31]

'

Probably the so called English language is being corrupted for the umpteenth time.

Yes, being is Good or Bad Fettle was common in the North of England.
Again, to fettle things like metal castings was quite acceptable wording.

Probably the root of the word comes from 'the horses' fetlock'

However the word ending of of 'ettle' suggests working out and finally solving a difficulty/
That is quite old and there is one place called Etal which is a village where the River Till can be crossed.

It\s next to Ford= complete with bridge and castle but far from making motor cars!
Again \ettle' appears in the Gaelic and probably dates back many centuries more than now supposed.

You have to be on your 'mettle' though

N

 

[bazmak]

I worked in our foundry for a few weeks and boy was that a dirty job.Only thing worse was the fettling shop where
the risers and pourrers etc were knocked off and the raw castings were rough fettled with hand held angle grinders etc
The castings were then sent to the finish fettling dept to be fine tuned prior to machining etc or languished in the casting store for
years sometimes.Im in fine fettle was a common term in my neck of the woods. Yorkshire UK

 

[redhunter350]

Once upon a time, for a brief period, I was employed as a 'fettler' and used to fettle all night (I was working night shift). Not a fun job where I worked and was glad to be promoted to a pickler and finally a dipper after a short while, although occasionally I had to help the jiggers out too.

A little humour re - fettler, pickler etc -- received this from an old pal from apprentice days who's now in Canada : -

Yossel Zelkovitz worked in a
Polish pickle factory.
For many years, he had a powerful, almost uncontrollable desire to put his penis in the
pickle slicer. Unable to stand it any longer,
he finally sought professional help from the
factory psychologist.
After six months of intense therapy, however, the frustrated therapist gave up. He then advised Yossel to go ahead and do it, otherwise he would probably never have any peace of mind. The next day Yossel came home from work very early.
His wife, Sacha, became alarmed and wanted to know what had happened. For the first time, Yossel tearfully confessed to her his tormenting desire to put his penis in the pickle slicer. He went on to explain that today he finally went ahead and did it, and he was immediately fired.

Sacha gasped and ran over to her husband. She quickly yanked down his pants and shorts only to find a completely-intact penis. She looked up and said, "I don't understand. What about the pickle slicer?”
Yossel replied, “I think she got fired, too.”

 

[Gabe J DiMarino]

Dose a magnet stick to it ? Will a file cut the the shaft easily? If a file skates across ,its a hard shaft probably 4140 pre hard use some oil peregrinated bearing bronze .

 

[Anatol]

Here in Western Australia, fettling is not a 'normal' word and only relates to specialised industry. I was a fettler (also known as a 'dresser') on hot-dip galvanised parts. The fettlers job was to remove dipping drips, dags and runs, plus clean up and repair any problem spots on the galvanised pieces. I took it to mean something like 'finishing' or 'cleaning up' of the workpieces. It's also in my vocab from somewhere as a more general 'adjusting the piece to fit' (filing, grinding, etc).

Hah! Cogsy's an Aussie! I'm an expat, so I noticed an obscure Australian term - dag! Originally, I believe, a 'dag' was a bit of dried up diarrea in the wool at the rear end of a sheep ('at home on the sheeps back' an all that). I met a (farm) girl from Charleville (Qld) in Rome (Italy) many years ago. We had to run for a train, and she said 'come on, rattle your dags' . I fell about laughing (but managed to catch the train).

 

[Anatol]

I worked in our foundry for a few weeks and boy was that a dirty job.Only thing worse was the fettling shop where
the risers and pourrers etc were knocked off and the raw castings were rough fettled with hand held angle grinders etc
The castings were then sent to the finish fettling dept to be fine tuned prior to machining etc or languished in the casting store for
years sometimes.Im in fine fettle was a common term in my neck of the woods. Yorkshire UK

I worked in a foundry for ashort time as a young man. Dirtiest, most dangerous job I every had. But, as they say in Yorkshire, "where there's muck there's money" . A 90 year old woman from Yorkshire told be her dad said that.