Top all-time · #7223
Eric Weinhoffer
Personal blog · ericweinhoffer.com/blogdesignwriting
Eric Weinhoffer's personal blog at ericweinhoffer.com covers design and writing. Since 2020, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 11 times, most often “The Whitworth Three Plates Method (2017)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters repeatedly link this blog's post on the Whitworth three-plate method for making flat surfaces, citing it in discussions of precision machining, flatness and the history of measurement.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Artist, builder, and writer documenting fabrication and process.
Most-linked posts?
- The Whitworth Three Plates Method (2017)10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2020-10-04
What Hacker News says?
If the floor and ceiling (and walls) were leveled and flattened and brought to plumb with a straightedge scraped in with the three-plate method [1] (Popularized by Whitworth in the 1830s, but the ancients made straight edges and flat plates too), then they were actually not 90 degrees at the corners! [1] https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-thre...
Comment linking /blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method
on “Making Minecraft Spherical”Submitted The Whitworth Three Plates Method (2017) as a story · 160 points
HN discussionWith images: https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-thre...
Comment linking /blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method
on “TSMC eyes Germany as possible location for first Europe chip plant”Submitted The Whitworth Three Plates Method (2017) as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> Maybe this was unclear, but the point wasn't that there is a good singular notion of free will, and that that is a commonsense one. How could this be when we can be demonstrably discussing different objects when we say "free will"? Just because people will generally, kind of, vaguely think they agree when they say "free will" does not mean they are truly in sync. And yes, the objects they mean will mostly overlap…
Comment linking /blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method
on “The Libet experiment doesn't disprove free will (2019)”Submitted The Whitworth Three Plates Method as a story · 1 points
HN discussionhttps://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-thre...
Comment linking /blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method
on “Static electricity depends on materials' contact history”Worth noting is https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-thre...
Comment linking /blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method
on “Making a Concave Mirror Using 15th Century Technology (2018)”> Truing plates, which have to be made in threes The Whitworth method of making absolutely flat plates (usually called "surface plates" in the U.S.) using NO precision surfaces to start with, is fascinating in its own right. https://ericweinhoffer.com/blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-thre...
Comment linking /blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method
on “Maudslay's Methods of Originating Screws”If you only care about the two surfaces matching each other, you don't even have to worry about your indicator. Just grind them against each other, or use some lapping compound to speed up the process. If you want to get the surfaces truly flat, then you use three surfaces that you successively grind against each other. https://www.ericweinhoffer.com/blog/the-whitworth-three-plat...
Comment linking /blog/the-whitworth-three-plates-method/
on “A Herculaneum scroll has been read for the first time”Yea, I'm always blown away by the old master machinists I've worked with when they talk about getting to "50 millionths" (ie half a tenth of a thou) on manual lathe and measurable with a bench micrometer [1]. Also the auto body guys whose hands are like profilometers [2] and can just feel various surface quality [3]. This is actually where precision originally came from with the 3 plate lap where you're just using f…
Comment linking /blog/2017/7/30/the-whitworth-three-plates-method
on “Thousandth of an Inch”
