Beam me up Scotty

No posting on here for a while, but we have been busy!

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.

Next job will be to fit the joists into the housings which have already been cut.

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.

North beam and splice in position prior to final fixing

Lintels and brass monkeys

This should kill the death watch beetle

A couple of very cold days at the mill saw us resurrecting one of the two fireplaces. Very warming, although if there's too much west in the wind direction, we end up nicley smoked by the end of the day. We must get around to cleaning the other chimney out, on the opposite side of the tower, although it could be a never ending battle against the crows and their deposits of nesting material.



Mid and inner lintels installed

The two new lintels have been installed and the stonework above made good. Sighs of relief all round.... Looking at the window above, the lintels there could be even more 'fun'.

Supports for the crown wheel

In order to preserve the crown wheel, seen here from the stone floor, we are adding some extra bracing. These are being let-in to the main shaft, although the knots seem perfectly positioned to hamper these efforts. The angle of the knots shows that the tree, from which the shaft was made, is upside-down in the mill.

New lintels for south stone floor window

New middle lintel member in place



The old interior lintel member, in decayed condition


The lintels above the south bin floor window would have comprised three members. These have badly decayed, as in keeping with the other timbers on this, the exposed, side of the mill. We have started on replacement of these lintels. This will give some much needed support to the stonework above, which is in a somewhat precarious condition.

Flooring begins!.....

We had joist about had enough of fitting them, there was no joistification for anymore..


Finished joists on west of bin floor

At last, the bin floor joists are all in place and some floorboards have been fitted. The scaffolding will be removed / adapted as we work our way across. It will be nice not to have to tiptoe across joists for a change.

Drum restoring, and flooring

Sack hoist drive drum



New pieces let-in



Drive drums for boulters



A mixture of on and off-site work since the last post. Off-site we have started to restore the drive drum for the sack hoist. This has been affected by woodworm but there is plenty of 'meat' left in it. The worst bits have been cut away and new pieces let in. Its a similar story with the drive drums for the boulters. These are also being repaired, backed up with a layer of plywood to support the fragile structure. (This won't be visible when completed). Meanwhile, on-site work continues on the replacement bin floor joists - the original millwrights seem to have made-do with what material was available - so each joist housing has its own peculiarities - very time consuming to refit.

On tenter hooks, and a rare weather phenomenon

The new steel yards, welded to a cranked shape, are being set up with the tentering gear. These mechanisms would allow the gap between the stones to be minutely adjusted, according to the speed of rotation of the sails. The layout has been deduced from evidence of the remaining parts of the originals.

Meanwhile, work is progressing on the new joists for the bin floor. Also, the stonework around the spliced beam ends on this floor is being reinstated.

We were treated to a 'fire rainbow' today - a coloured arc in the sky caused by light passing through ice crystals in high level cloud. I think the proper term is a circumhorizontal arc - quite a rare phenomenon at these latitudes.