The top, or 'dust', floor was totally absent, so new beams and joists have been made at the workshop. Lifting of the large beams into the mill was originally going to be carried out with a crane. However, soft ground and access problems led to a decision to manually hoist the beams through the northern bin floor window. Cue strong, cold northerly wind !.....
The ends of the beams were pre-cut into splice joints. With the splice ends removed, this gave a short enough length of beam to manoeuver inside the tower.
Much re-hitching and shuffling later....the beams and splices were finally in place.
Prior to this, we have also been fitting replacement lintels to both bin floor windows. This has involved a lot of masonry work, making good the stonework above the rotten lintels - much of which had fallen out.
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| North beam and splice in position prior to final fixing |
