The model shown here was used to test design details against these photos:
The mill has two pairs of under-driven stone at the front of the mill, the sack hoist drive is from a small gear on the windshaft, but firm evidence of the precise layout of the sack hoist mechanism is lacking:
There's also an auxiliary drive take off which provides belt drive
to a flour dresser at the rear of the mill.
The stones are 'under-driven', meaning the bed stone remains fixed and the top stone rotates above it balanced atop a 'stone spindle' shaft, with the gap between stones being set by lifting the stone spindle's foot bearing up and down, moving the top stone with it:
The 'Horse' consists of a feed hopper with a regulating gate which feed grains down a vibrating shoe (nudged by an eccentric connected to the top stone known as the 'damsel' ) and so creating a grain feed into the centre of the top stone.
The shoe rests on a cross bar at its upper end but the angle of the shoe can be changed by adjusting the suspension cord which holds its lower end, to fine tune the rate of feed.
A low-grain alarm bell is fitted, which is normally held vertical by a the weight of grain in the hopper pushing down a leather strap, but when the grain level falls below the strap, the bell pivots so its lower end is nudged by the 'damsel', causing it to ring.
On the upper floor above each stone, there's a grain storage hopper which has a duct down to over the stones, with a slide gate so the miller can top-up the feed hopper when the warning bell rings:
Typical carpentry joint making
Many jointing techniques have been used on the mill, and to illustrate the sort of things that are involved we can look in detail at the carpentry required to make a wall bracket (in fact one of pair used to support a vibrating feeder)
Because of the vibration that'll be experienced in use, a half dovetail forms the key joint, which is made firm and tightened using a wedge:
Of course most of the detail is hidden when assembled, with the subtleties only apparent on disassembly or in section view:
(Sample images below)
