Odd jobs

Last Sunday was Apple Day, but was rather reduced due to the parking fields being waterlogged. However, loads of people turned up and we (Richard, Sylvia, Bob and Stuart from Heron Mill, who kindly spent the day with us) milled more-or-less all day, in spite of a slight and rather ironic shortage of water. More than 370 visitors came to see, many of them drawn by the TV coverage.

Today we did a few odd jobs.

To begin with, we tried to work out how best to modify the end of the launder to make the water fall into the wheel at the correct angle. Richard is going to make a frame from angle iron to carry the extra boards, and we made a plywood template to guide him.

The hopper lid and feed shelf

We also made a tongue-and-groove lid for the hopper, to keep the bat poo out. This will be usable both between and during millings. We also fitted a shelf in the rail between the upper and stone floors to help with tipping bags of grain into the hopper. We positioned it halfway between the No 1 and No 2 stones so that it would also serve a hopper for the No 1 (shelling) stones were it to be needed. Hopefully this will avoid tearing the bags, as happened on Apple Day.

Richard attends to the grease

Finally, we cleared out the old, waterlogged, grease from the wet-side wheel bearing and replaced it with new grease.