The model wheel to encourage coin donations!

Today I finally completed the model waterwheel, which is designed to encourage kids to pester their parents for coins to drop in. The wheel is very free on its bearings, and even a 5p coin will turn it. The whole is protected by a perspex cover - I had a lot of fun cementing that together. The coins fall in and strike a bell, so there is a very satisfactory series of clunks followed by a "ding"!

Update on progress

A while since I posted, so here is a little update.

Lifting the main wheel shaft

The volunteers were in mob-handed today.  One group raised the waterwheel shaft so that the wet-side bearing could have its annual inspection and re-greasing.  The previous week they had worked on the mill side of the shaft and the main vertical shaft re-packing wedges that were creaking having come loose in the dry hot weather.












Peter continues to cobble the yard, now working on the last little corner in the heat of the day!  It has been exhausting and back-breaking work.






We have also had to put a board under the slates on a further section of the roof to protect the flour sieve from stuff (bat droppings, dust, dead spiders) falling in the flour.  A couple of us finished fitting, varnishing and silicon sealing the boards.

 Work on conserving the parts of the second wheel continues while we await the formation of a proper fully authorised Project to begin to reconstruct it.

The renowned mill expert Martin Watts has carried out a second survey (the first was in 2010) and presented his conclusions in a report which will form the basis of the Mill Conservation Management Plan as it sets out our conservation philosophy (eg approach to mill-wrighting techniques) as well as commenting on the proposed programme of work.