Talk:Millstone

Boundary markers of the Peak District National Park, England

The boundary markers of the Peak District National Park (in England) are designed to look like old millstones. They are not in fact millstones; the detailed proportions are incorrect; I believe that they are in fact sections of columns from a disused building - possibly a church in Sheffield. I have therefore used the word "imitation" before the description ofthe PDNP markers. --Peakscan

Stone particles in flour

A point regarding the presence of stone particles in the finished flour: would it not be possible to separate the flour from the stone dust by shaking them so that the heavier stone dust sinks, leaving pure flour above? This would seem to be a simple procedure requiring no advanced machinery. Was this technique used or does it work? If so, it would be an interesting point to add to the article.--ChrisJMoor 01:09, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Derivation of "show one's mettle"

The 'show your metal' derivation is surely folk etymology. The word is mettle - meaning character or temperament. The OED has numerous citations of "show one's mettle" - none for "show one's metal". Cisgjm 09:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

...ditto for a Google search. It also seems highly implausible thay anyone would work in such a way as to regularly allow flying fragments of metal to embed themselves in their arms. Think of the possibilities for infection. I've taken the liberty of removing the derivation. Macboff 18:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but you left the <ref> in the page, which refers to a book that corroborates this "showing of metal". I have read the book and the author has obviously done a lot of research and talked with a number of old time millers. I, too, find it hard to believe, but is it not a bit hasty to dismiss this author's research without any evidence to the contrary? Alf Boggis 19:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

How do grindstones work?

I'd be interested to find out more about how grindstones and grinding work. For example: 1. Do the stones touch in normal use or is there a clearance? 2. How does the design cause the flour to fall out from between the stones but not the unground grains? 3. Does the inside of a cereal grain have a naturally powdery structure that makes it easy to mill? Macboff 18:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The stones do not quite touch. Their separation is adjusted continually while operating, according to several conditions, including how fine a flour is required. If they did touch I imagine they would wear very quickly (introducing grit into the meal) and the load on the mill machinery would make it difficult to drive the mill. On point 2, I believe the furrows get shallower towards the edges until they are not deep enough for whole grains to make it through unmilled. (I suppose I should add this to the article, once I have checked my facts.) Alf Boggis 19:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I've expanded the article to answer to try and answer these questions and explain how millstones function. However I may have wandered a bit onto the territory of other articles like grist mill and mill machinery. Reboelje (talk) 13:06, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

How is the grain fed?

Looking at the pictures, I don't see how the unprocessed grain is fed into the assembly, and how the flour and chaff is separated. Is the ground flour just scooped up off the ground, or is it fed into a hopper? More of the grinding process, and possibly links to other pages and sites on the process would be useful. Karanne (talk) 21:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Is the article "encyclopedic"?

I have never seen a working mill in my life, but impression is that this article is still short of being "encyclopedic". Mills and millstones come in an enormous variety of shapes and are used in many different ways and many different kinds of mills (or no mills at all). Yet the article is written as if there was an ISO standard for millstones or something. For example, the pictures already show that the moving stone can be either the top one or the bottom one; but many passages flatly assume only one of these arrangements. My impression is that each editor has written his/her part of the article with one specific kind of millstone in mind, as if it applied to all of them. Is this impression correct? If so, what can we do about it? All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

QR code installed

{{Toodyaypedia article}} QR code in place Elrebe56 (talk) 07:55, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Is the update to the symbolism section warranted?

I wanted to provide more information about Millstone’s symbolism both within and outside the bible. While writing the section, I divided it into two; symbolism within and outside the bible, primarily because it uses Millstones and Mills a lot—I was surprised. I tried to utilize academic sources to the best of my ability, but I have a question regarding that section—should I add more quotations and examples? And should the symbolism section be its own thing? (Granted, there might be too little or too many subjective meanings associated with it.) Melko2000 (talk) 02:13, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

mistakes in the history part of 'millstone'

Millstone is used instead of grindstone at the end of the Aboriginal part of the history of millstones.

Millstone is used again instead of grindstone in the 19000 years ago in Egypt part. 109.37.141.197 (talk) 18:10, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I changed the first one because the rest of the para and sources use the terms grindstone and grinding stone. Left the Egyptian one because unclear. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Holodomor

Is this section of the history of millstones exactly up to par? It cites exactly one website for several major claims and takes up a fairly large chunk for something very specific in a section focused primarily on the wider history of the millstone. I would say it'd fit better in an article on the Holodomor itself, as its insertion here appears a bit clunky and mildly off-topic. 84.248.71.202 (talk) 20:38, 17 April 2024 (UTC)