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Watermill Blog - Painting
24th June 2008
The team made a start today on painting the exterior woodwork at the mill. At this stage we are only applying undercoat subject to final approval of the colour of the finish coat but it is a big step forward. There are a few areas of the original paint on the front door and we are doing our best to match these for colour.
Our latest recruit, Bob, is a dab hand with a paintbrush so we know how to keep him busy for the next few weeks.
Kim used up the last of our stock of putty and glazed one of the casement windows at the front of the mill, after Bob had painted it of course.
Not all the repair work is done at the mill. It is sometimes easier to take the work to the tools rather than the other way round.
This was certainly the case with the sack hoist pinion. This has been fitted with a new set of teeth but these needed to be pegged into place.
The drill press at the mill was too small to tackle this job so Headley met up with Dave in Dave's home workshop and got the job done. We are not sure who the photo credit should go, probably Mrs Dave.
Colin and Martyn, with help from Kim and Jonathan on occasions, did a trial assembly of the PTO shaft on all of its bearings. This entailed re-fitting the wheels to the ends of the two sections.
The large pulley that drives the line-shafting was eased into place first followed some time later by the bevel gear that engages with the pit gear.
With the wheels in place it was possible to see exactly where the middle bearings needed to go.
Ideally we would like to get the two sections of shaft into line so that the universal joint has as little to do as possible but various openings in the two buildings don't actually line up. It must have worked originally but it does seem to have had a bad effect on the bearings. Still, with plenty of lubrication it should be OK.
Jonathan bricked in the window frame that we re-fitted last week while John made a curved fillet to fit above the front door. Both tasks took rather longer than expected but there were several interruptions for help with heavy lifting.
Richard turned up after lunch, took a few photos, and managed to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the afternoon.
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