Here is a good view of the offset crank and its wings upon its removal from the old wooden shaft.
It is at this point that you get a funny sick feeling in your gut because you know full well that in the next few months you will need to have a fully operational new wooden axle complete with the crank installed, placed in a new wooden pressure box of exactly the right width, and I mean with the following criteria:
The pressure box (a view will be coming in the next installment or so) has to be so designed that any swelling of the water acting on the wooden surfaces will not create problems, and to that end you have to be sure to allow for that expansion, but not too much either to allow for excessive seepage along the edges of the cast iron collars, or in the reverse not allow the shaft to revolve.
There is no text books available to my knowledge that contains such information, you are on your own, and it is a lonely ride let me tell you.
There could be someone out there with that experience but I was not able to locate them for any assistance.
There are quite a few vertical blade mills sprinkled over the country but I dare to say that many of these mills are not operational, or maybe just coasting along with the equipment as it is, or not coasting at all.
Some of the mills that I have visited have cast iron pressure boxes from what I can make out these types were running side by side in the same era, but were not available over all the primitive, or newly opened up areas of settlement
