October 27 , 2000
Heiligerlee, NL - The grinding stones and their associated mechanisms
Part II - The big Spur Wheel.
Last month's pictures included some on the bilinga and the elm wood waiting outside to be transformed into the spur wheel.
Well, the Molemas and their staff are well on their way with the big spur wheel.
As Guus was explaining to me last Friday: "This is the Fulton spur wheel we're now working on. The lower side of this wheel is what people in De Immigrant will see starting May of next year when they look up from the floor at 'belt'-height."
"This wheel will be horizontally attached to the central king's axle just above the third floor and the smaller gear will be driven by this big one here. It has a diameter of around 10 feet."
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The Spur Wheel is the big horizontal wheel. |
The next stage in the construction of the spurwheel is to make notches for the teeth that Guus is holding here. The teeth are made from wattle wood.
Below more elm wood parts of the spur wheel. These parts will be attached on top of the wheel, as it is shown in the photos above, once the wattle wood teeth are in place in their notches.
Behind the spurwheel another part (made of bilinga wood) that will give the wheel constructional strength.
Once the spurwheel is completely ready, it will of course be disassembled before it will be shipped to Fulton early next year. A spur wheel is too big to get into an existing windmill in one piece.
This little wheel will eventually be attached to the axle that will be driving the grinding stones, and will itself be driven bij the spur wheel. It's made of elm and ash wood.
And while making round wheels out of lengths of wood, there's a lot of scrap...
The work on the hoisting mechanism also continues. Here Guus is demonstrating how a supporting construction will be attached to one of the wheels to hoist the sacks of flour.
Hippo
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