Again it's been quite a while but things are moving slower in my world now, but just as enthused about the historic world of wood working and fashioning things by hand using old tools.
Before I forget a merry Christmas to everyone, and I hope good health to all as we enter the new year
Over the last while I have been trying to describe the workings of a Muley mill quite a challenging feat I am finding out
Oliver Evans also tried to describe the workings of mills but as I found out some very important information was left out such as how one inserted the wrought iron grudgeons into the ends of wooden shafts using hot lead in such a way that the forces directed on them due to operational requirements did not lead to failure
What I did find out over the years was how smart these old millwrights were and why the working examples survived for hundreds of years!.
Examining early examples of barns in particular one thing that stood out was that the old mills in our area could handle and process logs up to twenty feet in length That had an impact on our mill at upper Canada village because it mistakingly had been restored to only cut and process sixteen foot logs
One thing that landed in my plate a number of years ago was to refit the mill with a saw frame that could handle logs of a twenty foot length
One thing that led us in this direction was the vertical sawn planking in many of the local barn floors, and the census of that time pinpointed the local mills in operation that used water power as their driving force, and were vertical blade mills
Well it eventually came to be and we began to faithfully process twenty foot logs
I will tell you one thing logs large enough to process four inch by twelve inch by twenty foot planks in length are heavy indeed and made the saw frame groan under their weight
