Millwheel

“ Alas! not when, in the final stages of a long march, the jaded, half-starved beasts dragged themselves over the trail. Driver and lead mules even, lose ambition under the scorching sun, and with the insufficient food and long water famines.
The old reliability of a mule-team is the off-wheeler. It is his leathery sides that can be most readily reached by the whip called a "black-snake," and when the descent is made into a stream with muddy bed, the cut is given to this faithful beast, and on his powerful muscles depends the wrench that jerks the old schooner out of a slough. ”

“ They have corn-mills, consisting of a large horizontal wooden wheel, moved by a horse, and having a band passed round its periphery to communicate motion to the stone. These are called band-mills, and are the most simple and economical of those in which the power of horses is employed. The solitary planter, who has chosen his place remote from the habitation of any other family, has sometimes a mill of a more primitive character, called a hand-mill, probably differing little from those used among the ancient Egyptians. ”

“ A is the power-axis, receiving motion from any proper shaft of the mill. It is turned backward by that shaft, and therefore tends to raise the ball B—an operation equivalent to bringing the mill-stones nearer together. At the same time, the axis of resistance C, carries round a pallet-wheel D E, and by the pallet D, sets the pendulum F G a vibrating, which therefore, by every stroke, lets down the ball B, and thus raises the upper mill-stone. ”

“ Well, the answer is—and it is soon given—that the finest yarns would be quite unable to withstand the wear and tear of power-looms urged on by the resistless impetus of the water-turbine or the steam-engine. Ah, that machinery!—so delicate, so clean, so bright—can be very cruel! Be a little careless, a little wild, a little frolicsome, and an accident will occur in the twinkling of an eye. A mill is a good schoolmaster. ”

“ To the old fashioned lever, attached to the extremity of which a horse revolving a mill could only draw up per day a small quantity of water, or knead a small quantity of clay, man as he improved in mechanical knowledge added a wheel, in return for which he required the quadruped worker thereof to lift treble the amount of water, or to knead treble the amount of clay.
Along the rough muddy roads that existed throughout Europe half a century ago, a horse could with difficulty draw a single man seated in his gig or "buggy." ”

“ As we have seen, the primitive miller gradually learned that the pestle did better work when it fell with a twirling motion. This little bit of experience led to important results in the development of the mill. If the grinding were done better with a twirling [100] motion, why not have as much of the twirling motion as possible? Why not make the upper stone go round and round? This was what was done. The upper stone was caused to turn round and round. The wheel-mill, the mill of the upper and nether millstone (Fig. 5) , was invented. ”

“ Just inside the front wall of the mill the windshaft rests in a metal bearing, and next to it is the large gear wheel, known as the “brake wheel,” that can be seen when one looks up through the trap door from the mill’s little back platform. The platform, incidentally, was not unusual in post mills, although it was often a convenience added after the mill was built and on which the miller could enjoy a pipe and a moment of repose while the mill ground merrily away. ”

“ In mills for rolling metal the fly-wheel is used in this way. The water-wheel or other moving power is allowed for some time to act upon the fly-wheel alone, no load being placed upon the machine. A force is thus gained which is sufficient to roll a large piece of metal, to which without such means the mill would be quite inadequate. In the same manner a force may be gained by the arm of a man acting on a fly for a few seconds, sufficient to impress an image on a piece of metal by an instantaneous stroke. ”

“ With a well-constructed automatic mill of from two to five horse, such work could probably be performed with less trouble than in any other way. The only expense after the first cost is that for repairs and lubrication, neither of which is large. The power of any wheel depends, of course, on the velocity of the wind. They are usually rated with the wind at twenty miles an hour, and on this basis the powers of those made range from one eighth to forty horse, the smaller size being eight and a half feet in diameter and the latter sixty. ”

“ Across two of the rails half-way up the tower a board is nailed, to which the lower end of a trunk is made fast, if a wheel similar to the pumping-mill is to be used. But if a wooden mill is desired, it can be constructed from a buggy-wheel and six blades of wood, to appear as shown in the illustration.
At a wagon-shop an old wheel can be had for little or nothing, and with a little work it may be converted into the frame of a windmill. ”

“ Though this figure is small, and though it gives very little idea of the internal construction, one may, however, conclude from it that the roller, whether it was of wood or of iron, smooth or notched, did not stand perpendicularly, like those of our coffee mills, but lay horizontally, which gives us reason to conjecture a construction more ingenious than that of the first invention. The axis of the handle had, perhaps, within the body of the mill, a crown wheel, that turned a spindle, to the lower end of the perpendicular axis of which the roller was fixed. ”

“ Tread′-mill, a mill in which a rotary motion is produced by the weight of a person or persons treading or stepping from one to another of the steps of a cylindrical wheel, used chiefly as an instrument of prison discipline; Tread′-wheel, a form of tread-mill with steps on its exterior surface, by treading on which the wheel is turned.—Tread down, to trample to destruction; Tread in one's footsteps, or steps, to follow one's example ”

“ A horizontal wheel is geared loosely into a vertical one by big, clumsy wooden teeth. Over it projects an arm to which some patient draft animal is hitched. A long grass rope carrying an endless series of pottery jars or buckets completes the outfit by running over the vertical wheel, and all the water that does not splash back into the well flows into an irrigating pool and the ditches. The mule who worked this particular wheel acted as if he too were a Moorish survival, unaccustomed to modern inventions. Anyway, he tried to bolt when the engine shrieked. ”

“ The fly driving wheel is 35 feet in diameter, and grooved for twenty-seven ropes, which transmit the power direct to the various line shafts in the mill. The rope grooves are made on Hick, Hargreaves & Co.'s standard pattern of deep groove, and the wheel, which is built up, is constructed on their improved plan with separate arms and boss, and twelve segments in the rim with joints planed to the true angle by a special machine designed and made by themselves. ”

“ It was built right across the stream, with the mill wheel buried in its heart; and I can recall a certain childish speculation as to the results which would follow a possible relaxing of the house pressure on either side; in which case I hopefully assumed the wheel would slip out of its socket, and, carrying the frail bridge before it, roll cheerfully down stream on its own axle to the huge delight of all adventurous spirits. ”

“ The rolls are taken to “the billy,” a sort of preliminary spinning-machine, sometimes worked by the water-wheel, but (as yet, especially in Ireland) more generally by a man called a “slubber,” who is enabled by it to form from fifty to one hundred threads at a time, children being employed to stick the ends of the rolls together, which is done by lapping a small portion of the tip of one on the other which lies on the “billy-sheet,” and then giving them a slight rub. ”

“ Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle.
She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed into a proverb.
So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel shall no longer
Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with music. ”

“ The driver shouted, the horses went on, pulled one end of a bar, which was fastened by the other end to a big axle standing erect in the middle of the great millstones; the bar again turned the axle to which the upper millstone was fastened, and the millstones began to grind the water-softened clay, crushing its smallest particles. Our Lump no longer existed, but all its little particles which before formed it were now like clay-jelly, and kept close together. ”

“ In the mule the rolling is first drawn by the usual system of rollers, and then stretched by a moveable carriage. The effect of first drawing and then stretching is to make the yarn finer and [204] more uniform, as will be explained presently. The spinning mule is the most interesting and impressive spectacle in a large cotton mill—on account of its vast extent, the great quantity of work performed by it, and the wonderful complication and ingenuity of its parts. ”

“ In later years they made use of a further rig of chains and tackle and a wheel like a pilot’s, which enabled the snubbing around of the vanes and cap to be done far more easily than by pushing by hand alone. This old tail beam is, however, characteristic of the old-time small mill, and many are the tracks, well worn and circular, around the mill that betoken the{182} years of labor of the miller, even if eased by an old cartwheel to carry the end of the beam, as instanced in the well-known old mill at Nantucket and elsewhere. ”

“ A A, fig. 759., is the fly-wheel of an ordinary lathe, round which the endless cord B B passes, and embraces the pulley C, mounted upon the axle of the grindstone D. The flywheel is supported by a strong frame E E, and may be turned by a winch-handle, as usual, or by mechanical power. In the needle factories, the pointing-shops are in general very large, and contain several grindstones running on the same long horizontal shaft, placed near the floor of the apartment, and driven by water or steam power. ”

“ The saddle can be set to the proper angle, but before cutting into the blank, it is well to let the mill just touch the work, then run the work along by hand and make a slight spiral mark, and by this mark see whether the qjiange gears give the right lead.
Special care should be taken in cutting spirals that the work does not slip, and when a cut is made it is well to drop the work away from the mill while coming back for another cut, or the mill may be stopped and turned to such a position that the teeth will not touch the work while the table is brought back preparatory to another cut. ”

“ Over a large wheel in the upper part of the well a strong and broad band of leather is stretched, moving around with the wheel; to the band, in regular distances, many buckets of leather are attached, which, by the equal circular motion of the wheel and the band, are descending on one side of the well, and fill themselves with water, while they are drawn up on the other side, and, emptying their water into a basin, return again to the well. ”

“ Squeezed dry of its luminous lava, the white-hot sponge is drawn with tongs to the waiting rollers—whirling anvils that beat it into the shape they will. Everywhere are hurrying men, whirring flywheels, moving levers of steam engines and the drum-like roar of the rolling machines, while here and there the fruits of this toil are seen as three or four fiery serpents shoot forth from different trains of rollers, and are carried away, wrought iron fit for bridging the creek, shoeing the mule and hooping the barrel that brings the farmers apples into town. ”

“ A flywheel should preferably be [256] machined on a double-head mill so that one side and the periphery of the rim can be turned at the same time. A common method of holding a flywheel is shown in Fig. 9. The rim is gripped by four chuck jaws D which, if practicable, should be on the inside where they will not interfere with the movement of the tool. ”

“ It does not appear until the fifteenth century,—although the date of the first wool-wheel is placed by one authority in the fourteenth century,—before which time all spinning of wool, flax, and cotton was done on the primitive distaff tucked under the left arm in the way so familiar to us in pictures of peasant girls and Greek maidens spinning as they walk. Woman’s first distaff was the trunk of a tree; her spindle a rude stick, on which she wound and twisted the yarn as her fingers laboriously pulled and shaped it from the flax wrapped around the trunk. ”

“ The millman should have great experience; the runners and beds should be, as nearly as possible, the same size and weight, and driven at the same speed throughout the factory; at any rate, each charge should be worked to the same number of revolutions; the motion of the runners should also be as uniform as possible, which is very satisfactorily accomplished by each water-wheel being regulated by a governor.
BREAKING DOWN THE MILL CAKE. Breaking down the mill cake. ”

“ The roller-mill, for merely bruising the linseed, &c., previous to grinding it under edge-stones, and to heating and crushing it in a Dutch or a hydraulic oil-mill, is represented in figs. 770. and 771. The iron shaft a, has a winch at each end, with a heavy fly-wheel upon the one of them, when the machine is to be worked by hand. Upon the opposite end is a pulley, with an endless cord which passes round a pulley on the end of the fluted roller b, and thereby drives it. ”