Sandwich Whitemill shop entrance

The entrance to the shop at the museum has been leaking for a while, as the weather is slowly beginning to improve we decided to tackle it over the next few weeks!
The old polycarbonate roof will be removed & replaced with ply which will be felted.
This week saw the old roof removed.

With the old roof removed, the glass had to come out of the windows as some of the frames & cill were rotten.

The new roof joists could then go on, this time the roof will be flush with the existing roof & felted.

Sandwich Whitemill Windmill Museum

The continuing saga of the oil tank noved a little closer to resolution over the last couple of weekends...

Two concrete pads to support the stand for the new oil tank... this one will be enclosed....

Sandwich White Mill Windmill

Returning to the mill this morning... the repaired/replaced roof trusses were ready to have the roof boards fittted. First, however we needed to sort the fascia board & overhang so that a gutter can be fitted when the roof is finished.

Sandwich windmill

This morning we started to examine the roof of one of the outbuildings on the mill site. This is an old shed, most likely used to house a cart when the mill was in use & although it's been repaired in the past, it looks "right" so really needs to be repaired in a way sympathetic to its current condition...

However as the old boards were removed the full horror of what awaits us revealed itself...

Sandwich white mill rural heritage centre

Some good progress on powering the old lathe over the last couple of weeks, the motor is now mounted on the wall behind the lather & the layshaft is mounted under the floor above... It all rotates smoothly, the home-made wooden pulleys are surprisingly concentric!
The motor is now mounted to the wall behind the lathe & connected via a single vee belt to the pulleys previously installed under the floor above the lathe ... All seems to run smoothly when the motor is switched on.
The next problem to solve is what to use as a drive between the layshaft & the lathe... An old leather belt? A piece of seatbelt webbing?

The White Mill Sandwich

Further progress on getting the lathe running today...we glued all the pulleys that were turrned last week & made up the mounting for the motor. This will be fitted to the wall behind the lathe.

To cut the angle iron pieces for this we used the donkey saw we restored a few weeks ago...

The White Mill Sandwich

This weekend we made a set of flat belt pulleys for the layshaft which will hopefully drive the lathe...
The second picture is the largest pulley being turned whilst mounted on a faceplate on the lathe (yes, that was home made too!) the pulleys were given the convex surface similar to those on the headstock spindle of the lathe. I think that serves to keep the belt in place...

Sandwich Windmill

An unusual cloud formation this morning... the clouds seemed to be pointing towards Sandwich!

The lathe got a little closer to being powered again this morning... we mounted the layshaft under the joists of the floor above the lathe, the next job is to make up a mounting for the motor...

Morris Minors at Sandwich windmill

This Bank Holiday afternoon the Mill hosted a gathering of Morris Minors courtesy of the Morris Minor Club East Kent (www.ekmm.co.uk)

I just had to join....

Sandwich Windmill

An old lathe that was donated several years ago whish has been on our list of things to "sort out" recieved some attention this morning...
The lathe is largely complete & looks at if it was originally drven by a flat belt from an overhead shaft. It came to us with a 3/4HP 1425RPM electric motor which I repaired last year (the centrifugal contact which disconnects the starter coils once operating speed has been reached had siezed).
We intend to make up an overhead shaft & mount it above the lathe on the joists of the floor above the lathe, this layshaft will be driven from the motor via a vee belt. I'm thinking that the motor will be mounted on the wall behind the lathe... but that might change as things progress...



Sandwich Windmill

Good progress this Sunday, the pictures pretty much tell the story....
The tank was seperated from the bund which was cleaned out (smelly) & contained a surprising number of snails (why would they want to live in there?). What little oil was left in the tank was pumped out & photos were taken of the damage with a view to getting it repaired.

This later turned out to be far from cost-effective!
We are now back to thinking round the problem further, one only hopes the thieves have spent the few pounds they would have recieved from the oil they stole wisely? I would hate to think that we've been put to all this trouble for nothing!!!

The hoist in the workshop proved really useful again as we seperated the tanks...

The camera inside the tank (above), the blue hose is from the pump

Later in the morning materials for the repair of the cap were delivered, two pieces of Elm, cut for the ribs or curb & one piece of oak. The winch was used again!

Sandwich White Mill

Before we could do much more we need to move the old tank which had been damaged by the thieves who stole the oil. The pictures tell the story of what was about an hours work...
We now need to empty out the last of the oil & work out what to do next... repair? replace? new? used? siting? screening? security?

Stationary Engines at Sandwich White Mill

The Mill hosted a Stationary Engine group this morning....

Some turrned wooden items made by one of the volunteers for sale in the Museum shop

Sandwich White Mill

The Mill now has a useful little shredder which will mean we'll be able to recycle all our green waste on-site, removing the need to drive to the tip!
An ebay local bargain...I must admit, however, to feeling slightly nervous when I read that it had a two-stroke engine (aka the machine of the devil) but it was demonstrated before money changed hands & started first pull when I tried it... result!

Sandwich White Mill

A couple of shots from the top of the mill today as we were showing a Dutch master miller arouind the mill.
A very grey, wet morning...

Sandwich Windmill

A varied morning at the mill today...

We're still deciding what to do about the heating oil tank that was holed by thieves who stole the contents a few weeks ago.

Before we can do anything we have to empty the remaining oil from the existing 2,500l tank... so far we've pumped out 550l & there is still some more left... we filled up all the available containers today...

 We now have the use of a De walt thicknesser too


















A large heavy vice was also in need of attention.... this originally had a quick release mechanism, but this had long gone, so I made up a steel strip (the bit diagonally accross the vice near the mounting holes). This effectively keeps the half nut engaged perninantly with the thread byforcing it upwards, which is what the spring in the original quick-release would have done...



The Whitemill, Sandwich

A mixed morning at the mill today, the first thing is to report that the guardrails that we started a couple of weeks ago are now finished...

However, most of this morning was taken up with sorting a theft of heating oil which occurred sometime Thurday night. The tank is a relatively new polyethere, bunded one, & is mounted some five feet off the ground. The thieves had drilled through both inner & outer walls & then presumably drained the contents (approx 200l) into containers. The tank will have to be replaced which, ironically will cost a lot more than they will get for the stolen oil!

We will need to re-think the siting of the replacement tank to make this sort of think more difficult in future...

The white Mill Sandwich

This morning, one of the volunteers brought some grain to be ground on a pair of small stones that are usually used to demonstrate the grinding process to school parties... below is the result, a bowlful of whole grain flour... Scroll down to see a video of the process...

Following last Sundays activities, the workshop is much clearer! The weather today, however, suggested an indoor job so we set to work on a job that had been hanging around for quite a while... too long,in fact!

In the workshop, we installed two storage floors at a height of about 7ft from the ground. On one of them we never got round to installing guard rails... until today, that is!

For more info & details of forthcoming events at the mill this year, please visit www.whitemill.info

The White Mill Sandwich

Please visit www.whitemill.info for more details about the mill.

With the whips safely stored out of the way, it was time to turn our attention to moving the stock outside to create more working space in the workshop.

Easier than it sounds, when you consider that the stock is almost 40ft long & weighs in at around 1 ton! It first had to be lifted onto a trailer such that it was more-or-less balanced, this was relatively straightforward & it could now be moved.

However in order to get it out of the building a degree of manoeuvering was necesary... this is where things became more challenging! But as always, "applied physics" solved the problem & the stock is now outside & suitably protected.