[Hmm] Oops, wrong poll ...

[dancefloorlandmine]

I suppose this is the poll which I should have asked instead of this.

(The "Northern/Southern/Other" classification is for identifying how you identify yourself, rather than what the word means in different regions.)
[Poll #558245]
* or at least, what did it mean before this afternoon's digression

Comments

Fettle Attraction

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Anyone who's worked in a machine shop or a foundry will know that fettling is the nasty job of hammering and filing off the sharp flutes and coxcombs of metal that are found on the edges of a rough casting.

Northern bikers will use the term for tuning-up a bike - nowadays, the suspension as well as the engine.

And I've never heard the term anywhere south of Aston, 'Fine Fettle' or 'Fettling'.

Re: Fettle Attraction

[latexiron.livejournal.com]

As in "The Fettler" magazine http://www.hurley-pugh.co.uk/fettler.html

Re: Fettle Attraction

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

fettling is the nasty job of hammering and filing off the sharp flutes and coxcombs of metal that are found on the edges of a rough casting.

There's the same job of tidying up rough castings to be done in a pottery studio, and it has the same name ... but you do it to the unfired clay, so it's a lot easier and you can even use your fingers perfectly safely!

(More loosely, "fettling" is also used to describe the process of neatening up any blemishes on thrown pots just before the first firing.)