Improving the bagging area

Today George was filling some of the rather random holes in the masonry with wood, stone and lime mortar and Richard was working on the No 2 stone drive shaft (see later in this entry).  The rest of us made a start on the improvements required so we can bag flour in the mill.

 Ray removed the old back board from the wall and Mike cleaned it up and gave it a couple of coats of varnish.

Meanwhile Ray and Bob measured and cut two plywood panels to board over the bare slates, and these too were given some varnish. They will be screwed to the rafters next week when the varnish is dry.

 Mike went on to varnish the ends, legs and underside of the bagging bench.

 One of the other improvements listed last week was to the control that adjusts the angle of the shoe.  Bob found and removed this rather nice screw adjuster from the second, rather derelict, winnower.  Richard is going to adapt it to pulling the string.

Finally, as mentioned above, Richard had made some brackets which he clamped to the No 2 stones drive shaft.  There are brackets clamped above and below the stone nut taper.  Those below are to prevent the wedges falling out, while those above are to stop the taper sliding up the shaft when the stone nut is raised - the nut is a very good fit on the taper and tends to bind.