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This kept the sails
turned into the wind by means of a series of gears which
turned the winding worm and wound the cap around the
wooden cogs of the curb. The fantail turned clockwise and
was eight bladed. To turn the cap through a full 360
degrees required 3,250 turns of the fantail. It was
possible to hand wind the cap with a key which was kept
in the cap itself. The sails
via the windshaft, which was made of iron, powered the 9ft.
2in. brake wheel, so called because the brake that
stopped the mill was applied to this wheel. The brake
wheel inter-meshed with the wallower, which was fixed to
the main drive shaft or upright shaft. The upright shaft
was made up of four sections bolted together and was four
sided. This shaft became sixteen sided and was made of
pine and was 21in. square at the wallower. In the smock
mill at Upminster the upright shaft was in two pieces
with a universal joint made of iron. This it is claimed
allowed for more tolerance when the mill was operational
and reduced the risk of distortion of the wooden smock
frame. The upright shaft passed through the dust floor,
the bin floor and the stone floor to the meal floor and
the great spur wheel. Approximately 3ft. below the great
spur wheel was situated the wooden cogged bevel gear,
about 4ft. in diameter, which facilitated the use of the
engine drive. The engine shed was situated to the south
west of the mill. The great spur wheel drove the three
stone nuts which in turn drove the stones. The stones
consisted of a lower stationery stone called the bedstone
and a moving upper stone called the runner stone. All
three pairs of stones were made of French burr a
quartz quarried in France just outside of Paris. Found in
small pieces the burr is cemented together with Plaster
of Paris and encased in iron hoops. The stone positions
were north-west, south-east and the added south-west. The
north-west and south-east pairs were 4ft. in diameter and
the south-east pair had a diameter of 4ft. 10in. . Each
pair of stones is encased in a wooden vat or tun. The
stones had grooves known as furrows chiselled into them,
the untouched part was known as land. This enabled the
runner stone when passing over the bedstone to perform a
scissors like action. The grain came though the linen
shutes on the bin floor into the large wooden hoppers,
one above ach pair of stones. It was then fed along the
shoe into the eye of the stones in a flow regulated by
means of a metal spindle with four vertical rods, which
stood up from the stones and turned with the runner stone.
The four rods struck the shoe as it turned thus ensuring
a consistent flow of grain. This device was known as the
damsel, some say because it made more noise than anything
else in the mill others because it did more work than
anything else in the mill. The real reason being that
prior to the invention of this device a young damsel was
paid to sit and tap the shoe to ensure the regular flow
of grain. Attached to the foot of the shoe was a leather
flap from which a string ran up to the ceiling where it
was attached to a bell called the warbler. When the grain
supply was running out the leather flap would no longer
be depressed and therefore the string would go slack, the
bell would drop and be rung by a projecting peg on the
main shaft. This alerted the miller so that he could
refill the grain hoppers or disengage the stone drive.
Failure to do either of the above would be allowing the
stones to run without grain passing through them which
would at best blunt the cutting edge of the stones
meaning the particular pair of stones would have to be
shut down until such time as they could be recut.
However, more importantly if the stones run with nothing
passing through them they can cause sparks. This is very
dangerous as grain can give off highly flammable gases
and with all the dust in the air the sparks would easily
ignite them and as the main fabric of the structure was
wood this would burn quite quickly and easily.
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