I was hoping that extra time on this would lure some more responses. But.....
Reifendrehen is a means to mass produce figures from lathe turning. If you turn a donut on the lathe part it off and lay it flat on a surface, then cut segments from the ring, you will soon have a lot of little disks. If instead of a donut you establish a pattern for say a horse, turn that patern into a ring on the lathe, part it off and split or saw off segments of the ring you will fill a small corral with little horses. It is a technique generated in the 1800's to mass produce little figures rather than hand carving them and the process was centered on the town of Seifen in Germany Here is a 2 min video of a reifendreher producing a product.
By the way, notice the hat and the glasses, I cringed but I wasn't there and he did look comfortable. Look carefully and you will notice he is checking the profile against a pattern as he turns
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/technik-moto ... 71513.htmlIt looks like it could be a nice "just because I can" project for the rounders here.