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 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 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!

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

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 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....

Intro Feb 2012

I thought its time that I attempt to make contact with the other person in the world who might be interested!!

I've always had several projects on the go at any one time.... & right now is no exception...
so here's a list:
Morris Minor, '58, two door saloon, black, familiy owned since new
1950's Sunbeam motorcycle, still collecting parts, about 85% there... just the difficult bits to find now, anyone got a distributor?
1976 Honda CG125, an early one
1987 Honda C90, the bike the world went to work on! almost there on this one
1981 Honda NC50 Express moped, a recent ebay bargain, just started stripping
Leisure 17 sunspot, a freebe, needs some repairs to the deck & bulkhead, but otherwise, just a paint job...
I'm a volunteer at a local windmill, where we're currently re-making the sweeps (sails)
My full time job is a Design Technology teacher...

I'm sure there's more but this'll do for starters