the.com/lathing
Spinning wood or metal against a blade until chaos becomes a perfect cylinder.
means Either the act of shaping material on a lathe by rotating it against a cutting tool, or the work of fitting thin wooden or metal strips (laths) to a wall or ceiling as a base for plaster.
from Two threads twist together here. The plaster sense comes from 'lath' — a thin strip of wood — a word with deep Germanic roots, related to Old English 'lætt' and cousins in Old High German and Welsh, all meaning a slender bar or batten. The machine sense rides on 'lathe,' a word whose history is murkier: it appears in late medieval English, possibly borrowed from a Scandinavian source (Old Danish 'lad') meaning a stand or supporting frame. The spellings drifted close enough that the two senses now share a doorway, though they came from different streets.
- ancient craft
- Egyptians used two-person lathes over 3000 years ago
- subtractive art
- You sculpt by removing, never adding
- symmetry engine
- Rotation guarantees roundness no hand could match
- chip storm
- Spinning stock flings curls of material constantly
- machine ancestor
- Father of nearly every modern manufacturing tool
willis tower skydeck — chicago observation deck whose glass floor sits 1,353 feet above ground with metal lathing support structure visible beneath
historical plaster restoration — colonial williamsburg uses traditional wood lathing techniques to recreate 18th century wall finishes in virginia