MILLSTONES DRESSED 4

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John set to with Henry the vacuum cleaner (8), and Jon brushed away the old flour.

When the bedstone was totally clean, Jon gave a demonstration of stone dressing (9 and 10) to our miller. A tungstentoughened mill bill inserted into a wooden thrift was used for the operation.

The tool has to be used at the correct angle to be effective. Jon prefers to use traditional methods rather than an angle grinder.

When itinerant stone dressers were applying for a job they used to spread out their hands for inspection. This was to show the flecks of metal that had got embedded in the skin from their work. It was possible to tell from this how much experience a man had of millstone dressing, thus the expression “Show me your metal”.