Water Mill Blog - Floor Repairs
6th December 2007

The weather forecast for the day was pretty awful but this Water Mill Blog can report that it didn't put off our regular team members.

Martyn, Richard, Headley, Dick and Max turned up and after the usual morning gossip got down to work. As it turned out the weather forecast was unduly pessimistic, it stayed dry all day with a few drops of rain falling as we got into our cars to go home.

One comment from last week's site visit by the planners was that the new floor boards in the mill did not match the old boards for width.

Dick and Max spent the day lifting the new boards, trimming them to width to match the old boards and replacing them.

Now we know we have to match any repair exactly we will make sure we get it right first time. Size, shape and material must match, but we don't need to try and match the colour.

Headley carried on with the repair of the PTO flywheel/pulley that lurks under the hayloft steps. This has a crack across the circumference that needs splints to hold the crack closed and flat.

Headley has been having trouble shaping the splints to the curve but he seems to have the problem solved now.

Martyn and Richard worked in the relative comfort of the hay-loft, putting in two more new joists to replace badly decayed ones.

The joists are set into the brick wall at the outer end and are tenoned into an oak beam at the other end.

Each tenon is slightly different, so each joist has to be measured and fitted individually but we seem to have got the hang of it.

By the time the light started to fade we were happy that all the joists in that section of floor are sound so we can lay some new floorboards next week.

We had two welcome visitors at lunch time, elected members of the County and District Councils, who expressed an interest in the mill and what we are trying to do. We explained that the Society is a registered charity aiming to repair the mill to provide an educational resource and a visitor attraction.They seemed to like the mill and our objectives and pledged their support for the project. Of course, we suggested they stay up to date with our efforts by following this Water Mill Blog.

By the time we left at four o'clock it was dark and raining but we felt we had made a little more progress with the work.

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