Earth Moving
6th September 2007
When we weren’t watching Keith we got on with a number of continuing jobs. John started to build some steps down into the waterwheel pit. These are a bit like well building, because he had to start at the top and build downwards, but it seems to be working out okay so far.
Dave and Martyn shared a ladder to work on the wall above the waterwheel. Dave completed the pointing up and then cleaned the brickwork with brick cleaning fluid. Martyn added dummy glazing bars to the new windows which were made with three large panes of glass rather than nine smaller panes. The visual effect is much better, and the only way to examine the deception closely is to climb a ladder. Once they had finished the scaffold platform was removed and Richard took photos for the weekend’s display.
Max worked at the corner of the stable, finishing off the repair to a hole at the base of the wall and then adding some more courses to the corner buttress. All this bricklaying is being done with lime mortar, mixed by hand because the cement mixer has not yet returned from its holiday. John, in particular, finds the lack of the mixer a real pain in the back.
Headley spent his day making the first pair of splints for the broken wheel spokes. This involved a great deal of drilling, eight holes in the spoke and four holes in the two splints, all of them to be accurately positioned. The holes in the spoke can be drilled through a jig but the last two holes in each splint have to match up with the bolts that hold the wheel segments together and these vary slightly at each location, say plus or minus half an inch. The final fitting of the splints is going to be a bit of a challenge.
All in all a good day, and we can forget about having to do all that earth moving by hand. All we need to keep us happy next week is a cement mixer and dry weather. Just for the record, this is the 100th entry in our restoration diary.
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