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.

The White Mill Sandwich

The winch!

The Mill in the winter sunshine.... not looking its best with only one pair of sweeps!

The final sweep being lifted next to the other three... the winch is hanging from an RSJ between the two strip lights...

Please visit http://www.whitemill-sandwich.co.uk/  for more information about the mill & the collection of artefacts

The material for the new whips is now all safely stored out of the way. This time the whole operation went much more smoothly because we discovered an endless which which was much easier (& quicker!) to operate...

The White Mill, Sandwich

The mill is needing new sweeps (sails), the wood to make the "backbone" or whip of the sweeps has been purchased. These are 35ft long pieces of Laminated Larch, approx 8" square in section at their thickest end. These would traditionally have been made from solid timber, which was an option for us &, indeed would have been cheaper, but we decided to go for the laminated material to reduce the possibility of movement resulting in splits, thereby allowing moisture into the wood. Also the Danish firm who supplied the material were able to cut the whips to the necessary taper, thereby saving us many hours of work!

As this is a long term project, we needed to make some space in the workshop by by storing the whips off the ground so that they are out of the way until we are ready to work on them.

This was this mornings activity, as the photos show....